Review: Death on the Nile

The title of Kenneth Branagh's second - and with Disney having left this on the shelves for well over a year, almost certainly last - Agatha Christie adaptation promises viewers two things. Unfortunately, here the Nile is only adequate at best, a mix of average CGI and the occasional cutaway to reed farmers or chomping crocodiles; Death, on the other hand, does more than its fair share of the heavy lifting.

Almost from the beginning, Christie's puzzlebox mysteries were scorned by fellow crime writers as bloodless things detached from reality. Branagh seems to have taken this criticism firmly on board, even as, close to a century later, the mystery genre continues to thrive on contrivance and disposable characters. A quirky, self-referential, post-modern take on the genre this is not.

Opening with a WWI sequence that's both a grim origin story for Poirot's mustache and the first sign that this is a tale where love is firmly entwined with death, things muddle around for a while in pre-WWII London and Egypt until Poirot's enjoyment of the Great Pyramids is interrupted by old chum Bouc (Tom Bateman), who drags him along to a fancy honeymoon party where it turns out Poirot knows the main players but not the combination they've settled down in.

Extremely wealthy heiress Linnet Ridgeway (Gal Gadot, charming and likable) has just wed hunky lunk Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer, entertainingly solid), who - last time we saw him - was dry humping Linnet's bestie Jacqueline (Emma Mackie, sympathetically tormented) on a London nightclub dancefloor. Now she's turned stalker, Linnet is understandably freaking out, and she asks Poirot to tag along in the hopes his private investigator skills can keep her safe.

Meanwhile, literally everyone else in the party has a reason to be a suspect if something dodgy were to happen while they're cruising the Nile. There's a disgruntled maid, a shady lawyer, a doctor still carrying a torch for Linnet, a couple of old biddies who either miss their former wealth or won't stop talking about how they gave it away, and on it goes.

It's not until the halfway mark that we actually get to the (first) murder on the Nile. That may be too long for mystery buffs, but the attempt to give the roster of suspects at least some life - and a few pre-murder scenes to allow the impressive cast to play their characters as actual people - will be appreciated by those who either know the outcome or guessed it the second the events leading to murder kick off.

Likewise, despite the 30s-era glamour and luxury, everyone here takes everything extremely seriously (even Russell Brand as the lovelorn doctor never cracks a smile). If you're on this film's wavelength and not just wishing you were watching Knives Out instead, Branagh's approach as director is clearly the right way to go. This story is lightweight fluff any way you look at it, a puzzle built around unlikely people and contrivances; pointing any of this out, even for an instant, would make the whole thing collapse.

No wonder then that Branagh's Poirot is - silly mustache aside - a man tormented by lost love, an OCD sufferer scared to let anyone in, trapped on a boat where people keep being murdered and he's powerless to stop it. 

Terrified by the way death follows him and yet only truly happy when staring at the Pyramids (which are, after all, just giant tombstones), the world's greatest detective is definitely the last person anyone should invite onto a pleasure cruise.

- Anthony Morris