Kenneth Branagh is having a busy year! Belfast is currently nominated for a plethora of awards this coming awards season but his latest film, Death on the Nile, was made before Belfast was even an idea. With the pandemic and the 20th Century Fox acquisition of Disney stopping the film from being released in cinemas. Better late than never with the film now available to watch in the cinemas at the time of writing.
Murder on the Orient Express, which came out back in 2017, introduced us to a dashing and stylish Hercule Poirot, played with charisma by Kenneth Branagh. That film felt like an old-fashioned murder mystery film, with an all-star cast, huge locations and a killer story. Death on the Nile repeats these but it also feels fresh and different to the point that it doesn’t feel like a sequel but more of a standalone story, which makes sense as the Agatha Christie novels, which the films are based on, are their own self-contained stories.
Death on the Nile boasts a glamorous cast that includes Gal Gadot, Emma Mackey, Sophie Okonedo, Russell Brand and even Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders! Each one plays a character with murky intentions and dark secrets. It is a joy seeing Branagh’s Poirot use his detective skills on each one of them as he attempts to discover who is a killer. Not knowing anything about the source material that the film is based on made the film more immersive, especially with the marketing of the film not revealing who exactly is killed in the film as well.
There is a lot of set-up in Death on the Nile, with a black-and-white prologue that gives Poirot some rather unnecessary backstory and a lot of hefty exposition to explain why everyone is in Egypt to begin with. So it is very slow to begin with, and when we arrive in Egypt you do notice that the majority of the landscape is created with visual effects which at times feels quite noticeable. The costume and props however do a very good job at transporting you to this very distinctive era. Branagh is fantastic at world-building and the film definitely looks and feels like a blockbuster and is on par with his previous work.
★★★☆☆
3/5
There are moments in the film which will shock you with some surprise deaths, a lot of red herrings and an ending that you won’t see coming. Death on the Nile is a ride you want to go down, even if it takes a while before all the characters end up on the boat where the murder takes place. Death on the Nile is at its strongest during the puzzle solving aspect of the story with Branagh bringing his own unique spin on Poirot’s character and hopefully it won’t be his last case on the big screen.
Thanks for reading today’s blog!
Alex Murray, the Head of Eyesight Productions
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