Death on the Nile
2022
**½
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Cast: Tom Bateman, Annette Bening, Kenneth Branagh, Russell Brand, Ali Fazal, Dawn French, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Rose Leslie, Emma Mackey, Sophie Okonedo, Jennifer Saunders, Letitia Wright
In 1937, Hercule Poirot joins a luxurious cruise down the Nile with a group of duplicitous people who have gathered to celebrate the wedding of a wealthy heiress. Like the title suggests, one of the passengers is murdered. Kenneth Branagh's second Agatha Christie adaptation offers marginal improvement on Murder on the Orient Express. This is a good-looking but extremely mechanical murder mystery, which explains me the twists and turns rather than make me feel like I'm immersed in the story. As it's 2022, the script predictably adds racial and sexual diversity to the characters, even if it doesn't fit in the historical context. As if the film is not long enough, Branagh kicks off with a 10-minute origin story for Poirot's moustache.
