Critic’s rating: ★★★
(127 minutes; PG-13)
“Death on the Nile,” the second Agatha Christie adaptation to be helmed by Kenneth Branagh, who also stars as the beloved mystery writer’s ace detective Hercule Poirot, feels like three films in one: The short prelude and opening sequence are so appealing that they make the main feature feel a bit like a letdown. Ultimately, that’s slightly problematic, as some might say.
The whodunit nevertheless gets off to a crackling start with a beautifully crafted black-and-white segment set in 1914, somewhere in Belgium, during a fierce World War I battle. Soldiers scurry around in the muck and grime of long trenches, and young combatant Poirot (Branagh) devises an ingenious method for carrying out a raid that once looked like a suicide mission. A fierce attack ensues, and Branagh does a marvelous job of putting viewers in the thick of the action as men in masks hurl themselves headlong into enemy terrain, while navigating immense clouds of poisonous gas. The triumphant attack ends with a literal bang. Suffice it to say that the upshot of this section might be subtitled Origin Story: How Poirot Got His Moustache. It’s a character-defining patch of facial hair, of course, and as positioned on Branagh’s nose it’s an ornate, double-decker mass of fur, a living thing that practically deserves its own zip code. Dare you not to stare.
Flash forward 23 years to a swanky London nightclub, where Poirot, now a celebrated murder hound, sits alone at a table, carefully arranging his six miniature desserts in a triangular array, savoring the jazzy blues of charismatic, tough singer Salome (Sophie Okonedo), and watching randy couples dance as if their lives depended on it. He also spies a love triangle unfolding: A good-looking pair, guy-about-town Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer) and his fiancee Jacqueline de Bellefort (Emma Mackey), are on a date when she introduces him to her old friend, the uber-wealthy and glamorous Linnet Ridgeway (Gal Gadot). The two, gyrating and swirling around on the dance floor, their bodies too closely entwined for Jackie’s comfort, only have eyes for each other, leaving Doyle’s wife-to-be dumbfounded and alone.
Several weeks later, on vacation in Egypt, Poirot is pulled into the orbit of the now-married Simon and Linnet, who happen to be honeymooning at the same resort. “I’m in hiding from cases,” says the world-weary detective, decked out in a bright white suit — think Tom Wolfe — and drinking some type of libation, a crimson red Baedeker’s Egypt travel guide resting on a nearby table. He’s delighted to meet up with his old pal, the happy-go-lucky Bouc (Tom Bateman, making an encore after appearing in Branagh’s 2017 “Murder on the Orient Express”) and his rich, rather dour and bitter mother Euphemia, a painter (an underused Annette Bening).
The three are invited to join the wedding party aboard gleaming luxury yacht SS Karnak for a spin down the Nile. The moneyed bunch also includes a group of folks in Linnet’s inner circle — her maid Louise (Rose Leslie), her cousin and attorney Katchadourian (Ali Fazal), godmother and nurse (Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French, who work together as a comedy duo on British television), and former fiance, Dr. Windlesham (a practically unrecognizable Russell Brand). The Doyles also have imported their very own entertainment from London, bringing along sassy Salome and her ambitious manager, niece Rosalie (Letitia Wright).
And so it begins, a series of crimes — no spoilers here — that, Poirot, naturally, is obliged to solve. Suspicion, as the story requires, falls on practically every member of the party, each of whom appears to have a motive, and at one point someone says that the famed detective is too eager to accuse everyone of murder. “It is a problem, I admit,” he quips. Still, he doggedly stalks his quarries, and so does his camera, which in one scene engages in the kind of near-dizzying circling that I last remember seeing in Brian De Palma’s films.
The bigger problem, of course, is that, while the gleaming interiors and even some of the CGI-enhanced Egyptian travelogue exteriors are fun to take in (more so than in the cramped confines of the “Orient Express” train), the relationships among these folks, which we’re told are intense and passionate, seem decidedly underdeveloped. And the pacing feels off, more like a rambling, meandering path to the big reveal than a thrilling ride to the conclusion that picks up steam as it goes.
Still, “Death on the Nile,” originally slated for release in 2019 and mostly shot in England, makes for a pleasant-enough voyage. Bright spots include Poirot’s often jovial and sometimes sarcastic verbal parrying with his fellow passengers, and some winning performances — particularly Mackey as the treacherous, stalking Jackie, and Okonedo as the smooth, saucy singer. “I’ve had a handful of husbands, each one a handful,” says Salome, who may or may not be an object of Poirot’s affection, when he asks about her marital status. The screenplay, by Michael Green, who also penned “Orient Express,” could have used more of those witty exchanges.
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