Death on the Nile ★★½
HERCULE Poirot may be a great detective but he’s not much chop at crime prevention.
As I recall, he was sound asleep in the compartment next door when the killing occurred in Murder on the Orient Express.
He’s again snoring away in his cabin when the initial violence goes down in Death on the Nile.
I guess he can’t stay awake all night watching everybody, but people also manage to get killed right in front of him when he’s awake and talking to them.
Anyway, his expertise is ‘after the event’ as per the formula set by the late and prolific crime novelist Agatha Christie back in the 1930s.
I may have read one of her 60-odd novels way back and the couple of versions of Murder on the Orient Express, in 1978 and 2017, were pretty entertaining.
Kenneth Branagh directed and starred as Poirot in the 2017 version with the screenplay adaptation by American Michael Green.
Both men return to deliver the new Poirot detective thriller Death on the Nile with less success overall.
Firstly, Green’s script and Branagh’s portrayal of the character seem a little pedestrian. Poirot doesn’t dominate all his scenes the way he should and his trademark Belgian sense of humour is less on display.
Having said that, there is an excellent prologue that goes back to Poirot’s war service which I’ll come back to later.
Secondly, the film has another all-star cast but only a few really produce stand-out characters, again possibly more a fault of the script.
Gal Gadot and Armie Hammer are fine in two of the key roles, but the characters played by Tom Bateman, Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Ali Fazal, Dawn French, Rose Leslie and Jennifer Saunders seem too reserved and occasionally even boring.
The best of the cast are Emma Mackey as the wronged lover and femme fatale and Sophie Okonedo, who has all the best lines as a sultry jazz singer.
Unfortunately Covid also didn’t help the film which was unable to film on location and instead had to create several major sets in England. The filming that did occur along the Nile is sufficient to help set the scene and the recreations of sites like the Temple of Abu Simbel is very good.
But shots of the cast on the steam ship requiring the Egyptian background are less successful with the matting at times quite poor.
Overall it’s not as entertaining as Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express but still serves the purpose of bringing another Poirot tale to the screen with enough success to warrant more.
Speaking of more, the prologue makes me keen to see a Poirot origins film, particularly if more of Branagh’s Belfast-style visuals and a slightly more interesting script are involved.