Review of Death on the Nile (2022) by Fingermouse — 18 Feb 2022

If you're a fan of Agatha Christie and Poirot in particular, do not see this movie. If you've read the book, do not see this movie. If you're clueless about the characters and plot of Death on the Nile then you might enjoy some parts of it for what it is, but that's a big 'might'.

The film starts with an entirely unnecessary WW1 backstory of Poirot's moustache. If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed that anybody would have thought it useful to invent one (Agatha Christie certainly didn't). During this, somebody talks about Poirot being a farmer, which would have surprised Christie who only ever wrote that he was a policeman before becoming a detective.

From this point, it skips forward to a scene where Poirot is listening to famous romance author Mrs Otterbourne singing in a bar. Oh, wait... famous author? No, in this version, Mrs Otterbourne is a blues guitarist (with comically long guitar lead) and singer. Of course she is. Poirot witnesses the main characters meeting, clearly in an effort to avoid having to film any backstory for that relationship (obviously moustache exposition is more important).

From here we jump forwards again to an unconvincing CGI Egypt, and things go downhill from there. The storyline is hideously mangled into something unrecognisable, and the pacing is literally all over the place. One minute the camera is wildly swinging in circles, the next minute it's panning slowly over people equally spaced along a railing (obviously supposed to be very stylish). Then we're flying high above a CGI boat before swooping down to spend an eternity in conversations that go nowhere, and we eventually find ourselves in a fast-moving gun battle. Yes, there is a chase and a gunfight.

The acting is unremarkable, although stand-outs are French and Saunders who manage their parts (or what's left of their parts) very well, and Russell Brand who plays Lord Windlesham. Anybody who's read the book will wonder why Lord Windlesham is on the boat rather than being a minor character who goes nowhere near Egypt. The answer is that in this version, he's required to fill the place of several other characters who are completely missing, notably Dr Bessner, Tim Allerton, Mr Ferguson, James Fanthorp... the list goes on. Some exclusions I could understand — every filmed version has cut at least *somebody*, but you can't remove characters like Dr Bessner and Cornelia Robson without seriously changing the story. For some reason, Bouc (who is not even supposed to be in Death on the Nile) takes a large part in this version and takes the place of Colonel Race (who is also clearly too busy to be in this film) investigating with Poirot. Additionally, he takes the place of somebody else during a vitally important scene, but at least he thought to bring his mother with him (which, again, would have surprised Agatha Christie as she never wrote about Bouc's mother).

Gal Gadot as Linnet either can't act or had no interest whatsoever in this film. Branagh takes turns being hostile and terminally boring as Poirot, and it never feels like he's really investigating anything. Nobody is ever asked where they were or what they were doing during each murder, instead they're interviewed about their feelings about love. It genuinely feels like Poirot is hosting his own chat show most of the time, with an occasional break for some gunplay or slamming of doors.

The least Branagh could have done would be to have gone on location and made the surroundings believable. That's half the film right there. Instead, we're treated to CGI, matte paintings and a completely impractical and unrealistic boat staffed (it seems) by white female deckhands wearing shorts (who only turn up to carry the body when somebody dies). Nobody seems to be waiting on anybody (although there's nowhere to eat anyway) and the world seems to be completely empty apart from the few characters (far too few) on the boat.

How is it possible to screw up such a great book so badly? Why have we waited for this mess for so long? Please do avoid this film at all costs.