Kenneth Branagh had such fun trashing Agatha Christie in The Orient, he thought he’d take the show to yet another continent. Hey, Hercule, you still got a bunch left; I can’t wait until he gets to Antarctica for The Case of the Purloined Penguin.
It wasn’t filmed in Egypt. Big shocker there. And you know how we can tell? Everything looks both too good and too empty. Fun as it is to queue some random well-dressed Belgian breakfasting in an exact linear axis with a sphinx and a pyramid, there’s no way that view is so clean … even in 1937. No possible way.
Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Death on the Nile 2022, a remake of the 1978 murderfun is set in 1937, and begins in 1914 because we need crucial background information on Hercule Poirot as he fights in the trenches of WWI. Decades later, he’s also involved in something resembling trench warfare at a nightclub where Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer) dirty dances with both his current fiancée (Emma Mackey) and his future fiancée (Gal Godot).
And this is where the trouble begins. Leading to murder? Why no, don’t be silly. Leading to more exposition than is necessary. You see, Wonder Woman here is the biggest name in the film, but her character, the opulent snakestress Linnet Ridgeway-Doyle, is obviously the first victim. You can’t just kill Wonder Woman off at the end of Act I, right? So the film expanded her character and shortened the mystery.
Although Death is still a reel away, the suspects all gather at the Nile for holiday, I’m guessing. The big controversy is that Simon and Lynette are on their honeymoon and Jackie (Mackey) keeps showin’ up wherever they go. I thought she was poor; why don’t they just go somewhere she can’t afford? Seems nuts to me that they care so much about an ex- but don’t have an issue with the fact that they know every other person on the boat anyway, and none are considered friends. Cuz that’s who you want on your romantic honeymoon cruise … random cousins, godparents, a different ex-fiancé, a lawyer, and a business partner or two, right? Yup, my ex-fiancé, that’s ok, but your ex- is a problem.
I don’t want to spoil it, but it turns out there’s Death on the Nile
… or at least in the sound studio where this version was filmed. I want to state this quite clearly: the fun of a murder mystery is guessing who did it and why. The two biggest characters in the film, however, the ones who get the backstory are Poirot (star/director Kenneth Branagh) and Linette Ridgeway-Doyle, in other words, the people we can guarantee going in did NOT commit the murder.
Do you know how these things work? Do you know how they’re supposed to work? Oh, and it gets better. This version added a subplot about a lesser investigation, which is great, cuz I didn’t know what was going on, but poor in that when it was done, four suspects were pretty much eliminated from the overall suspect list. By the time we get to the classic Poirot unveil, there really are only about three people who could have done it and the other two seemed like they were in a different film. If I cared more, I’d be a little embarrassed for the picture.
Death on the Nile is very pretty. Even in the sound studio, the cinematographer captured a bogus-yet-lush look at early 20th century Egypt. I also love that they kept the ship name “Karnak,” which continues to signify not so much hieroglyphs, temples, and gods so much in my mind as the comic prognosticator played by Johnny Carson. If you don’t know the details of the book, I suppose this movie offers a C+ mystery. But I’d take the Peter Ustinov version every day of the week and twice on Ra Day.
If you want to avoid Egyptian hi-jinks
Please follow these tips, me-thinks
The glyphs you’ll grasp
If you watch your asp
And always remember to walk the sphinx
Rated PG-13, 127 Minutes
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Writer: Michael Green
Genre: Mystery? Screw that! We have Wonder Woman
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: People who haven’t seen the original
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People who have
