Death on the Nile * (2022, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Bateman, Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Ali Fazal, Dawn French, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Rose Leslie, Emma Mackey, Sophie Okonedo, Jennifer Saunders, Letitia Wright) – Movie Review

After murdering the famous Agatha Christie murder mystery thriller Murder on the Orient Express in 2017, Kenneth Branagh returns to the scene of the crime in his even worse 2022 remake of Death on the Nile.

Michael Green’s screenplay is pretentious, unfocused, cluttered and muddled, spending so much time on sleuth Poirot’s back story (it starts in the trenches of the First World War, for heaven’s sake!) and dallying with a load of heavyweight shipboard nonsense that we seem never to be getting to Christie’s enjoyably teasing murder mystery. When it finally kicks in, it is rushed and unfathomable, even to those who know and love the 1937 novel and its two previous good film versions, because, they’ve messed around with the characters and the plot, disrespecting Christie, who got it right in the first place.

As for Kenneth Branagh as actor here, his Hercule Poirot has way too much screen time, way too much moustache, and way too little credibility and likeability. This Poirot is a bore. Peter Ustinov was a lot of fun in the 1978 film Death on the Nile and David Suchet nailed the character in the 2004 Death on the Nile episode of the TV series Agatha Christie’s Poirot.

Here the other actors fall foul of credibility and likeability gap. A film with Annette Bening, Gal Gadot and Armie Hammer seems an occasion to look forward to, but there is nothing they can do to animate their roles. Bening and Hammer are extremely good players, but they seem totally lost. They are basically miscast and then the script and direction do them in. [Spoiler alert] Gadot comes off better, because, after swanning attractively around for some screen-hogging time, she mysteriously disappears from view.

Among the dodgy accents, Branagh continues to access ‘Allo, ‘Allo!, and Saunders’s American accent is as useless as Benning’s and Hammer’s English.

So the film is ponderous, bloated and slow moving. Problem is, everyone is taking the whole thing way too seriously, even comedians Russell Brand, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. Branagh is asking them to act seriously, and he needed different players to do this. Of course they could have been funny, but it needs a different director for that. Branagh’s Death on the Nile is no fun at all, not even to poke fun at.

As for Kenneth Branagh as director here, his pretentious, unfocused, cluttered style of direction murders the movie, splashing CGI all over the place, so we always feel we are in a film studio, a visual effects workshop, or an editing suite, not anywhere near the Nile. The bigger the scale of the CGI, the flashier the camerawork, the less ‘real’ and convincing the movie. Small, or at any rate much smaller, would have been beautiful. Christie is full of tiny moments, tiny observations. Here everything has to be huge, just in case folks won’t go to the cinema.

Unexpectedly, Tom Bateman is back reprising his role from the first film as Bouc, Poirot’s friend and confidant and the son of renowned painter Euphemia (Annette Bening). Bouc confesses to Poirot that he is dating Rosalie (Letitia Wright), despite Euphemia’s disapproval. Bouc replaces Christie’s character of Tim Allerton. Monsieur Xavier Bouc may be remembered as the director of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits railway, Poirot’s friend and fellow Belgian, who helps him obtain a second-class berth even though the Orient Express train is fully booked in Murder on the Orient Express. Bouc gives Poirot his first-class cabin.

[Spoiler alert] So what has American writer Michael Green been up to? While he leaves the elements of the central murder unchanged, characters and details are either omitted or altered. Salome Otterbourne (Sophie Okonedo) is now a jazz singer and not a drunk, while Rosalie (Letitia Wright) is her adopted niece. Bouc is the third person killed instead of Salome Otterbourne. Linnet (Gal Gadot)’s lawyer Andrew (Ali Fazal) is now also her cousin, and Mrs Van Schuyler (Jennifer Saunders) and Miss Bowers (Dawn French) are a lesbian couple. Mrs Van Schuyler becomes Linnet’s godmother. All the suspects are friends of the married couple Linnet Doyle and Simon Doyle, who have invited them to their honeymoon celebration.

Christie’s great-grandson James Prichard, chairman of Agatha Christie Limited, has expressed enthusiasm for sequels after positive collaboration with Branagh and the production team. That is nice but perhaps he should keep a closer eye on his great-grandmother’s stories.

Principal photography began on 30 September 2019, with filming at Longcross Studios in England, completing on 18 December 2019. A very impressive boat was recreated for the film, as well as the Temple of Abu Simbel. Unfortunately, Patrick Doyle’s score is no help. Special effects artist George Murphy, as the overall visual effects supervisor, must have been a very busy man.

They used the real Tiffany Yellow Diamond. Gal Gadot wears it as the theft of the diamond is part of the mystery. It was also worn by Audrey Hepburn in 1961 publicity photographs for Breakfast at Tiffany’s and in 2019 Lady Gaga wore it at the 91st Academy Awards.

The cast are Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot, Tom Bateman as Bouc, Annette Bening as Euphemia, Russell Brand as Linus Windlesham, Ali Fazal as Andrew Katchadourian, Gal Gadot as Linnet Ridgeway-Doyle, Armie Hammer as Simon Doyle, Rose Leslie as Louise Bourget, Emma Mackey as Jackie de Bellefort, Sophie Okonedo as Salome Otterbourne, Jennifer Saunders as Marie Van Schuyler, Dawn French as Mrs Bowers, Letitia Wright as Rosalie Otterbourne, Susannah Fielding as Katherine.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Movie Review

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com