Wake Up Dead Man review: Killer franchise gets back on track with this sarky whodunnit starring Andrew Scott and Daryl McCormack

Select cinemas / Netflix; Cert 15A

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery | Official Trailer

To chilly upstate New York where a notorious small-town priest (Josh Brolin’s Monsignor Jefferson Wicks) pops his clogs during mass. A nasty knife wound suggests murder, but in a church full of onlookers? It defies logic.

With nobody else to blame, Wicks’s congregation points its finger at Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), a former boxer with a famous temper.

Did the young priest do it? We’re not convinced, and neither is the chief of police (Mila Kunis), who calls in America’s snazziest sleuth for assistance. Ladies and gents, it’s the return of Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig).

Diligent and dapper, Blanc flew too close to the sun in Glass ­Onion, the second chapter of Rian Johnson’s beloved Knives Out saga. The third, Wake Up Dead Man, is a tidier film, with bigger stakes and fewer gimmicks.

True, this sarky, self-aware whodunnit laughs a little too hard at its own jokes, and there isn’t always room for its awesome cast – our own Andrew Scott and Daryl McCormack included – to spread their wings. But Johnson’s playful locked-room mystery keeps us guessing, and Craig (tremendous fun) and O’Connor (a proper leading man) work their magic.

Three stars