Daniel Craig in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (Netflix)

Love it or hate it, subversion has always been director Rian Johnson’s trademark. From early projects like Brick and Looper to the polarizing Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Johnson enjoys luring moviegoers with the promise of something familiar, only to yank the rug from under our feet when we least expect it. With 2019’s Knives Out, he struck gold applying this formula to the Agatha Christie–inspired murder mystery, turning a classic whodunit into a scathing satire of class privilege and unearned wealth. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery offers a comparable social critique to Knives Out, but with more ambitious flair, while cementing Daniel Craig’s Southern-twanged investigator Benoit Blanc as the most original Hollywood character since John Wick.

Admittedly, one can’t call Glass Onion a sequel in the traditional sense. With the exception of Craig’s return and Blanc’s reputation as a world-famous crime solver, little mention of Knives Out’s events is made, nor required to enjoy this follow-up. But Johnson’s moneyed targets of mockery remain consistent. He merely advances his focus to Silicon Valley types, influencers, and deceptive bureaucrats, individuals who enrich their brand by moonlighting to the public as rebels. “Disruptors,” as Blanc’s host, billionaire Miles Bron (Edward Norton) describes them. A hip, affluent Elon Musk–type, Miles wants to be perceived as renovating or flipping off the status quo, all while his actual contributions to society are questionable at best.

How Blanc ends up in such company is the movie’s first big tease. After receiving an overly intricate puzzle box, the detective earns himself a vacation to Miles’s Greek island and murder mystery party, joined by a crowd of absurdly rich and famous acquaintances played by yet another A-list cast. Some of his friends are your casual elites, like Leslie Odom Jr., as a scientist working on a new fuel source for Miles’s company, and Katheryn Hahn as an ambitious East Coast governor.

Others are a bit more eccentric. Dave Bautista plays a gamer popular with the men’s rights crowd who never travels anywhere without his gun and sweetheart (Madelyn Cline) in either hand, while Kate Hudson shines as a dopey fashion designer with an overworked subordinate (Jessica Henwick) and a history of cringeworthy, scandalous tweets. All live above the system and, like Miles, pride themselves as being fellow disruptors, even as it becomes clear how much he finances their operations. Weird rich people shit, with a side of possible cause for murder.

Tensions are enflamed by the arrival of Miles’s former business partner, Andi (Janelle Monáe), who holds grudges against nearly all the partygoers for justifiable reasons. But unlike Knives Out, Johnson holds back from depicting any violence until late into the game. He wants us to get to know his characters for a bit, to soak in their hilarious idiosyncrasies. (Hudson is particularly uproarious as the featherbrained entrepreneur Birdie). It makes Blanc, at first glance, seem in over his head as more dirty secrets come out. That is, until Glass Onion floors you with how much has been hiding in plain sight the whole time.

In terms of intricacy and payoff, Johnson has perhaps crafted his best script yet. Every single reference, callback, and admission about seemingly unimportant events is exposed with unfiltered clarity by acts II and III, the kind of “ah-ha!” moments you revel in after successfully deciphering a Where’s Waldo challenge. Once you figure everything out, it’s impossible to look at this movie the same way twice, ensuring repeat viewings once it hits Netflix. All of which give this cast a chance to really flex their dramatic and comedic muscles, with Craig and Monáe as the undisputed scene-stealers. The same goes for Johnson’s legion of cameos, from Ethan Hawke to Yo-Yo Ma and all the celebrities present in Blanc’s opening FaceTime chat. Everyone wants the chance to be part of the Knives Out universe, if they’re lucky.

Glass Onion certainly devotes more interest to mystery over murder than Knives Out, but the payoff to that presumed aimlessness is more than worth the wait. Plus, Glass Onion is a superior comedy, filled to the brim with laughs of the high-brow, low-brow, and whip-smart, dialogue-driven variety. And you can tell Daniel Craig is loving every second of it. Benoit Blanc is as much a dandy as a comedic powerhouse, allowing Craig to be far more expressive than in all his 16 years as James Bond—all the more reason to get excited for Blanc’s future as a franchise star, a contemporary Hercules Peridot.

There’s no mystery as to why Netflix bought the exclusive rights for this film and its sequel: Glass Onion is as solid as a prized diamond.