[Rating: Minor Rock Fist Down]
Only in theaters Friday, February 11
Yawn.
That was my first reaction when the credits rolled on Death on the Nile, the follow up to 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express, and yet another adaptation of Agatha Christie‘s great body of work. Unfortunately, the film is unable to breathe the same intrigue and wit as the novel, and as a fan of both murder mystery novels and films, Death on the Nile, is just…boring.
The film begins, with — no joke — a ten minute, black and white prologue that answers the question that has surely been plaguing Agatha Christie fans for years: how did Hercule Poirot and his mustache become a thing? I for one am glad they answer this right off the bat, so we can be thoroughly bored by everything that happens afterwards.
As for the plot, I’ll keep it simple. After all, the point of a whodunit is to not know whodunit and even if you haven’t read the book, it’s pretty obvious whodunit. Our detective protagonist, Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) finds himself invited to the big, extravagant, Nile destination wedding of a rich socialite, Linnet Ridgeway (Gal Gadot) and her fiancee, Simon (Armie Hammer). When a murder takes place, Poirot is on the case conveniently (or is it?) to start interrogating the guests, all of whom seem to have a motive or at least a reason to be under the umbrella of suspicion.
Branagh is not only the man behind the mustache, he’s the man in the director’s seat as well and while he plays the hell out of Poirot, he’s simply unable to inject any real life into the rest of the story or the characters, none of whom seem to be having as much fun as him, aside from Emma Mackey (watch Sex Education if you haven’t already), who reviles in stealing scenes whenever she saunters on screen.
Which is a shame, because the cast full of some very capable character actors, including Topeka, Kansas native Annette Bening, Jennifer Saunders (Absolutely Fabulous), Rose Leslie (Game of Thrones), Ali Fazal (Victoria & Abdul) and even Russell Brand, remember that dude? Unfortunately, the cast and story just come together to bring Christie’s classic mystery to life. In fact, it’s fairly predictable, which makes it a little more difficult to sit through without constant clock watching.
But it’s just too damn slow. It takes an hour for any murdering to actually happen, then characters spend the next hour splitting up to have quiet spoken conversations that really just amount to grandstanding character monologues. At least at a dinner theater there would be some food to provide substance, since the script by Michael Green fails to give any of the characters anything interesting to do.
Death on the Nile is a gorgeous movie, with a solid cast and Branagh playing a character he was born to play, but this slowly paced mystery is never interesting and the whodunit is way too obvious.
Lover of movies and tacos. Ad man. Author. Member of the Kansas City Film Critics Circle and the Broadcast Film Critics Association. Founder of the Terror on the Plains Horror Festival. Creator and voice of the Reel Hooligans podcast.
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