This time the need to investigate a mysterious murder, distracted from his own recreation, catches Poirot aboard a luxury cruise ship sailing along the Nile.

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This is one of the cases where I have to actively fight with myself and not fall into the primitive ‘it was better in the book. A movie is a movie, it works according to its own laws, it has to be considered separately. Harry Potter had better books than movies, too, but still the public loved the adaptations. That’s why I always give the movie a chance to tell the story itself, abstracted from the source material.

Agatha Christie is an iconic figure for me. I have her entire collection of novels on my bookshelf, and I couldn’t miss the release of Death on the Nile in theaters. Murder on the Orient Express, released in 2017, left very conflicting impressions. It was clear that Kenneth Branagh was very fired up about the idea of doing a series about Hercule Poirot, for which he even assembled a very nice cast for both films. But even the choice of the piece hinted to me that this was more of a project for the masses. Death on the Nile, like Murder on the Orient Express, is more of a pop novel than a detective, because the intrigue in them dies in the middle. It’s easy to understand, which makes it easy for anyone to figure out. And it is this feeling in detectives is worth its weight in gold. However, the true lovers of mystery inside these novels will be a bit boring. Despite this, they have very interesting plots, worthy of adaptation. So how did the creators manage to tell this story of a little Belgian’s journey to a hot land?

Structure. It is very difficult to work with Christie’s material, because there is already a series on the expanse of cinematography, which quite accurately retold the novels. The authors of the film really wanted to adapt the flow of the narrative, simplifying some elements. And perhaps up to a point this doesn’t pose a problem, but the murder turns out to be simply bad timing, it happened too soon. While the TV series manages to give quite decent exposition by this point, introducing the characters involved and giving them their own motivation, the film does exactly nothing. The viewer doesn’t even know the names of half the faces at the time of the crime. This leads to the fact that the main character grabs motives for the murder practically out of thin air, starts blaming everyone in a row, and this is only to create a false sense of intrigue.

Simplification. On the one hand, the movie quite decently cleaned up some branches of the novel that were indeed unnecessarily twisted. On the other hand, it threw out more than half of the information that somehow made the detective a detective. By the end of the movie, the entire audience was already pointing the finger at the culprit, and only the greatest detective on the screen was still not keeping up with adding up 2+2. If Murder on the Orient Express could be forgiven for its predictability in favor of a narrative of personal drama, then Death on the Nile carries nothing but a mystery within itself. And it’s been simplified to the point of being primitive. So what, then, is the viewer’s fascination to follow?

Dynamics. As a plus to the original work, you could safely charge the pace of the narrative: it could slow down a bit and reflect, and then explode and gain incredible momentum. Such an emotional roller coaster is very impressive. Alas, after reworking the script, the pace of the film proved to be monotonous. It flows from beginning to end in the same mode, which can hardly be called an interesting move. And that’s strange, because the script was worked on by Michael Green, who was involved in the consciousness of Blade Runner 2049, Logan and Call of the Ancestors.

Acting. I’ll be honest, I like Hercule Poirot’s rendition of the series better. Kenneth Branagh, despite being incredibly content with his role, lacks the special charm and charisma of this little detective, which was handled quite well by David Souchier. However, of the rest of the cast, despite the big names (Gal Gadot, Laetitia Wright, Annette Bening, etc.), I have no one to praise. There were some good parts, one scene pleased Emma McKay, but more often the action on the screen looked like a school play for drama school, which was more fun to watch than interesting. Armie Hammer is, in my mind, a miscast at all. He botched all the important scenes, was eerily passed over emotionally, and clearly didn’t connect chemically with any of the actresses.

Love. Love plays a very important role in this piece. And its proper portrayal on the screen is extraordinarily important to the plot. I didn’t see any love, but plenty of lust. The problem is that it is terribly false and unnatural. And, more importantly, unnecessary to this movie. Oh yes, the screenwriters also slipped some pheromones into Poirot himself. What for? I don’t know…

A little bit about the agenda. The viewer is now reacting very strongly to the introduction of modern values in movies, so I am obliged to mention it in passing. The addition of a black family {direct character replacement} to the plot seemed appropriate to me (both contextually and in the format of the historical time period). At the same time, the same-sex couple seemed foreign and unnecessary. Possible? Yes. But I didn’t see the need for it either, more like a simple reverence.

Filming and effects. The film had a budget of less than $100 million. And in order to entice viewers into cinemas, it was necessary to get famous faces on the cover. So the project ran out of money. What’s my point? My point is that I haven’t seen such cheap graphics in a long time. It’s like students made it in a couple of nights. And the constant filming with the camera spinning is really addictive. In 2022 it looks rather ridiculous and embarrassing. In my mind, it’s better to watch unknown actors playing (it’s unlikely to get any worse) than to watch childish effects from 2001. A case where a marketing ploy only worked to your detriment.

Info Blu-ray
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265 (47.4 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: HDR10
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1

Audio
English: Dolby TrueHD with Dolby Atmos 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: Dolby Digital 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 2.0
French: Dolby Digital Plus 7.1
French: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital Plus 7.1
German: Dolby Digital Plus 7.1
Italian: Dolby Digital Plus 7.1

Subtitles
English SDH, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish.