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Rising to the challenge of matching its successful predecessor, “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” maintains the razor-sharp formula, with a setup that feels even more conspicuously like an Agatha Christie homage before an extremely clever series of twists kick in. Writer-director Rian Johnson again assembles a solid cast behind Daniel Craig, but it’s his use of language – where nary a word is wasted – that finally gives the sequel its edge.

Netflix opportunistically stepped up to acquire the “Knives Out” franchise and, departing from its usual “Stroke the filmmakers’ egos” approach to theatrical distribution, will actually give the movie a wide one-week-only release before it hits the streaming service in late December. Most people will probably still wait to consume it in the comfort of their homes, but for those who do take the plunge, it certainly plays well with an appreciative audience.

After the family dynamics in “Knives Out,” which gave everyone a motive to kill off the patriarch, Johnson tries his hand in a different setting, with an eccentric billionaire, Miles Bron (Edward Norton), inviting his old posse of pals to a murder-mystery getaway (during Covid, no less) on his secluded Greek isle, where they’ll be tasked with solving his “murder.”

The game, however, takes an unexpected turn, starting with the invitation to Craig’s master detective Benoit Blanc, who remains brilliant and odd in near-equal measure.

As for the eclectic roster of guests/potential killers (and/or victims), they include a fashion designer/social-media loose cannon (Kate Hudson) and her partner (Jessica Henwick), a fitness influencer (Dave Bautista) and his girlfriend/sidekick (Madelyn Cline), a scientist (Leslie Odom Jr.), a politician (Kathryn Hahn), and most intriguingly, Miles’ estranged former business partner (Janelle Monáe).

Although the latest movie obviously lacks the sense of discovery that greeted the original – and even turned Chris Evans’ sweater into a must-have item (Chris Evans not included), Johnson is smart enough to recognize that while this is about reloading, not reinventing, the change in venues can still refresh the formula.

Craig, moreover, is clearly having a ball with this new signature role, trading in his tuxedos and physicality for a more cerebral form of crimefighting, with a Hercule Poirot-like gift for eavesdropping and a Foghorn Leghorn Southern twang.

In one of those “Kneel before Zod!” flexes, Netflix reportedly paid a fortune to acquire these sequels, which is frankly just the kind of deal that threatens to take a fun little movie and screw it up by creating unreasonable expectations.

Happily, “Glass Onion” finds new layers to explore, in a way that makes the prospect of a new “Knives Out Mystery” every few years sound like a perfectly reasonable idea, wherever and however one chooses to consume it.

“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” premieres November 23 in US theaters and December 23 on Netflix. It’s rated PG-13.

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Although the main character’s name was inspired by the poetic line “Wednesday’s child is full of woe,” “Wednesday” is generally a delight, thanks almost entirely to Jenna Ortega. Having outgrown her Disney Channel days, Ortega makes the Addams Family’s now-high-school-age daughter the coolest humorless goth sociopath you’ll ever meet, in a Netflix series that’s more kooky than spooky or ooky.

Director Tim Burton sets just the right visual tone – a mix of the comedic and macabre that resembles “Edward Scissorhands” – while teaming up with “Smallville” producers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, who know something about building a TV show around an extraordinary teen. Indeed, when Wednesday gets enrolled in a new private school, Nevermore Academy, she tells the headmistress (“Game of Thrones’” Gwendoline Christie) about her frequent moves from school to school, “They haven’t built one strong enough to hold me.”

That might change at Nevermore, a Poe-etic name for this haven for the weird and witchy, with a supernatural vibe that’s as much Hogwarts (or X-Men) as Charles Addams’ signature comic strip.

Not only does Wednesday have to deal with dawning psychic abilities and the strange visions that go with them, but a mystery emerges that turns the suspicious lass into an ill-tempered, ebon-clad Nancy Drew, trying to ascertain who’s responsible as the clues begin to circle back to her own family tree.

It’s obviously a fairly derivative mashup of genre elements, but the mix works in part because even the smaller ingredients are tasty, from Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzman as Wednesday’s parents, Morticia and Gomez, to her sidekick Thing, who obtains a dress she wants by employing – what else? – a “five-fingered discount.” The writers extract a great deal of comedic mileage from that extremity, so give them a hand.

What separates “Wednesday” from similar efforts (Netflix’s “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” comes to mind), ultimately, is Ortega, who somehow manages to be relentlessly strange, a portrait in unblinking intensity and oddly endearing all at once. When the character description includes never raising one’s voice or cracking even the hint of a smile, that’s no small feat.

Throw in nifty touches like having Christina Ricci, who played Wednesday in the 1990s movies, as part of the school staff, and the local sheriff (Jamie McShane) dismissing Wednesday and her classmates as “the Scooby gang,” and the series operates on multiple levels.

Perhaps inevitably, “Wednesday” can’t sustain its initial kick as the serialized story unfolds over eight episodes, and the ending becomes too chaotic. Then again, that’s hardly a surprise given the nature of source material designed more for little jokes than a big sweeping story.

Seeking to bring something new a property like the Addams Family, which has been done so many times before, isn’t easy without altering its DNA. To its credit, “Wednesday” rises to the challenge and mostly manages to make it look like a snap.

“Wednesday” premieres November 23 on Netflix.