Death On The Nile. (12A.)
Directed by Kenneth Branagh.
Starring Kenneth Branagh, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Tom Bateman, Emma Mackey and Annette Bening. 127 mins.
When I mentioned I was seeing this, the second of Branagh's Poirot films, the boss said, "it can never be as good as the Peter Ustinov one." And I had no idea if that was sarky or sincere because I'd never seen it. Before watching Branagh's version of Murder On The Orient Express on telly at Christmas, I can’t remember ever seeing an Agatha Christie adaptation. But even from this position of total ignorance, I am quite certain in my deduction that the 1978 Ustinov version is indeed superior.
The difference between these Poirots is, I presume, that where Ustinov would just come in and get on with it, Branagh's performance and film is all fiddle and fuss. There is no ease to it. The film starts not on the Nile but in the trenches of the First World War. This gives Branagh another excuse to shoot in black and white and provides a noble backstory justification for Poirot’s stupid moustache. After diversions to a nightclub in a CGI 1937 London, and a look at some CGI pyramids, the film gets us onto a CGI paddle steamer on a CGI Nile with the selection of very wealthy people who will be our suspects and victims for the evening, played by not quite as star-studded line up as were on the Orient Express. (Unless you are thrilled to see Russell Brand play posh or the French and Saunders reunion.)
Branagh hasn’t turned Poirot into Wallander, but there is an attempt to give him some psychological depth, to show us the effort and cost of being the great detective. And it is certainly true that nothing is easy for this Poirot. Branagh makes heavy work of all his little idiosyncrasies while his camera is almost always busy, back and forth along that boat, moving towards the precise point that will be the culmination of some elaborately choreographed tracking shot.
The depth lent to the main character seems to have been taken from everything else. Visually it is shallow and almost everything looks completely fake. In Orient Express, after an atrocious opening half-hour, the film got a grip once it was on the train. Some very effective camera moves utilised the confined space beautifully. Here there are lots of flashy shots of refections in the boat’s many windows, none of which help commit the audience to the reality of the boat as a real location.
But a whodunnit ultimately comes down to the who done it. Though this may be one of Agatha Christie’s most famous stories, in an era of ubiquitous whodunnits it doesn’t stand out as a particularly special, or even good one. How much of that is down to the telling I couldn’t say but the herrings aren’t nearly red enough and the big final revelation isn’t very satisfying, being both obvious and implausible. The plot seemed to me to hold about as much as water as the film’s CGI river.
Directed by Kenneth Branagh.
Starring Kenneth Branagh, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Tom Bateman, Emma Mackey and Annette Bening. 127 mins.
When I mentioned I was seeing this, the second of Branagh's Poirot films, the boss said, "it can never be as good as the Peter Ustinov one." And I had no idea if that was sarky or sincere because I'd never seen it. Before watching Branagh's version of Murder On The Orient Express on telly at Christmas, I can’t remember ever seeing an Agatha Christie adaptation. But even from this position of total ignorance, I am quite certain in my deduction that the 1978 Ustinov version is indeed superior.
The difference between these Poirots is, I presume, that where Ustinov would just come in and get on with it, Branagh's performance and film is all fiddle and fuss. There is no ease to it. The film starts not on the Nile but in the trenches of the First World War. This gives Branagh another excuse to shoot in black and white and provides a noble backstory justification for Poirot’s stupid moustache. After diversions to a nightclub in a CGI 1937 London, and a look at some CGI pyramids, the film gets us onto a CGI paddle steamer on a CGI Nile with the selection of very wealthy people who will be our suspects and victims for the evening, played by not quite as star-studded line up as were on the Orient Express. (Unless you are thrilled to see Russell Brand play posh or the French and Saunders reunion.)
Branagh hasn’t turned Poirot into Wallander, but there is an attempt to give him some psychological depth, to show us the effort and cost of being the great detective. And it is certainly true that nothing is easy for this Poirot. Branagh makes heavy work of all his little idiosyncrasies while his camera is almost always busy, back and forth along that boat, moving towards the precise point that will be the culmination of some elaborately choreographed tracking shot.
The depth lent to the main character seems to have been taken from everything else. Visually it is shallow and almost everything looks completely fake. In Orient Express, after an atrocious opening half-hour, the film got a grip once it was on the train. Some very effective camera moves utilised the confined space beautifully. Here there are lots of flashy shots of refections in the boat’s many windows, none of which help commit the audience to the reality of the boat as a real location.
But a whodunnit ultimately comes down to the who done it. Though this may be one of Agatha Christie’s most famous stories, in an era of ubiquitous whodunnits it doesn’t stand out as a particularly special, or even good one. How much of that is down to the telling I couldn’t say but the herrings aren’t nearly red enough and the big final revelation isn’t very satisfying, being both obvious and implausible. The plot seemed to me to hold about as much as water as the film’s CGI river.
