Writer-director Rian Johnson’s “Wake Up Dead Man” is the third in the “Knives Out” series and possibly the best. It’s a return, of sorts, to the Gothic trappings of the first entry, which starred Christopher Plummer as a patriarch whose demise kicks off the murder plot. The second film, “Glass Onion,” set on a sparkling Greek isle, featured Edward Norton as an Elon Musk-ish billionaire. The gorgeous scenery outshone the convoluted whodunit machinations.

“Wake Up” can be appreciated as an excellent example of that venerable murder mystery genre – the “impossible crime” – in which no solution to the murder seems rational. But Johnson also has a bit more on his mind than this. Without being too strenuous about it, the film also probes the nature of religious belief.

The action leading up

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