Death on the Nile (2022) – movie review آراء [Disney]. Hercules Poirot on the road

Is the film a disadvantage that it is easy to come up with a solution when the plot of the film is based on a book that is almost 100 years old? Or maybe he was just playing with the viewer in an honest way and if someone is careful while watching, let him take pleasure in reading the tips correctly and that’s it? If only “Death on the Nile” was judged based on how amazing the production was it wouldn’t score much, but given that the story was already a play, a series, a computer game, and at least two movies, I think it would be appropriate to donate it and focus on something else.

Kenneth Branagh is quintessentially British, and even so aristocratic that it’s hard to imagine him as a Belgian detective with a belly and a kilo of pomade, especially after the perfection David Suchet had on Poirot. Many fans of Agatha Christie’s work resented him because he dared to move “Murder on the Orient Express” at all and immediately deleted the film, arguing that as long as the series was available, new modifications were unnecessary. They are, of course, right to an extent. There is never a need to reproduce a recognized production, if it still fully defends itself. But it never stopped Hollywood producers, and in this day and age, when every new project may or may not be reckoned as profitable as possible, the easiest and safest way is to redesign or continue. Or, as with today’s movie – both (sort of). So, if you come to the fact that it is impossible to escape from this type of cinema, it remains to answer the question whether the creators at least tried to provide us with the best entertainment.

Death on the Nile (2022) – movie review [Disney]. galaxy of stars

Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) is on vacation in Egypt, when he is almost forced to indulge in the love threads of the rich and powerful. A beautiful young heiress to a huge fortune, Linnet Ridgeway (Gal Gadot) falls in love with poor and handsome Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer), who breaks off his engagement to Linnet’s girlfriend Jacqueline (Emma Mackie) for her and marries almost immediately. the second. A beautiful wedding and honeymoon with guests is disrupted by the presence of a despised bride threatening the newlyweds. Hercules Poirot vows to make sure no one gets hurt, but will he be able to keep that promise? Judging by the title – probably not.

Once again, the director and movie star in one person made sure that the entire cast consisted of well-known and well-liked names, so that the viewer could never be sure who survives, who gets killed, etc. That’s clever style, and thanks to him on screen, in addition to the names mentioned, we’ll see Annette return as Buck’s Tom Bateman as his mother, and by the way, famous painter Russell Brand in Unusual For Him, a quiet role of Lynette’s doctor and friend, the duo of Jennifer Saunders, and Dawn French as the millionaire’s godmother and her personal nurse Rose Leslie, who does not portray in today’s movie Jon Snow, but only serves the bride. Letitia Wright shuts down the stakes as Lynette’s old friend, Sophie Okonedo as her aunt and cousin, and Lynette’s lawyer Andrew, played by Ali Fazal.

All actors, without exception, perform their roles perfectly (although Gal Gadot shouldn’t count at the Oscars so soon, certainly not in that tone), but the viewer will have to struggle a lot to feel connected or connected with most of them. Even if it was sympathy. This is because as heroes they are somewhat flat and exist only for the sake of puzzle. We never feel that they are more than an enigma that Poirot must compose a picture of the situation. This isn’t a huge issue for the movie, especially given its nature, but it’s hard not to pay attention to it. The front line is definitely Poirot himself, who in today’s movie is as fun a friend as he is a serious, killer detective. We also learn more about his past, which makes him more human. The rest of the cast – which shouldn’t be surprising, given the director’s accomplishments – as if they had broken up with Shakespeare. They are cocky, full of pain, very meticulous and meticulous in what they say and do.

Death on the Nile (2022) – movie review [Disney]. Egyptian feelings

Personally, I’ve never been to Egypt before and know all I have of what the country looks like from Asterix: Cleopatra’s Mission. I know there must be sand everywhere, people walking in fez, and in every other corner you can see some remnants of the age of the pharaohs, and the sun is shining there very orange. The first three elements can also be found in Branagh’s film, and fortunately the exaggeration of the color views has been avoided – although looking at the poster, one might suspect that. The lion’s share of scenes looks completely natural, and only the panoramic images of the Nile in the morning and sunset, repeated several times, present these distinctive golden colors associated with the land of the pharaohs. The camera operator was Haris Zambarloukos, who also collaborated with the director on his Oscar-nominated “Belfast” and you can see that he understands his needs very well, because the movement is very fast, and the footage and camera work perfectly. From the mystery, the frame is always filled with many elements, some of which may be necessary to solve the puzzle.

And that’s it. The puzzle itself. Perhaps the most important element of the entire movie. I’ve never read Mrs. Christie’s original, and the movie copies, if I’ve seen them, are out of date and I can’t remember the solution anymore. Both the text and the direction try to confuse the leads. Indeed, every character has some “but” to a future corpse, and the camera often captures stealth glances or the indistinct behavior of suspects, which – in theory – misleads us. The problem is that the first and most important clue is very visual, screaming almost straight into the viewer’s face, making it hard to miss, and when it comes down to it, we immediately see and understand what the situation is. This could be said to be the magic of adapting a book over 80 years old, but perhaps if the first information was conveyed a little more subtly, the solution would not be so obvious. However, we will not know about this.

Death on the Nile, despite these few (significant) shortcomings, is a very interesting cinema. Two hours pass by when it is not known, and a great cast combined with an audiovisual layer and a very emotional finale – thanks to Michael Green, responsible for the proper preparation of the script – is a basic guarantee of a good time. The multiplicity of characters somehow forces us to treat each other carelessly, and the mystery could have been better hidden, but it’s still an interesting plot, with most of the British-Belgians in the lead. Hercules Poirot had never been so human before.