Death on the Nile
Cert: 12A
★★✩✩✩

After a delay of almost two years. Kenneth Branagh’s long-awaited follow up to his Agatha Christie whodunnit Murder on The Orient Express, is finally here. Reprising his role as famously mustachioed detective Hercule Poirot, director Branagh heads a stellar cast in this disappointing second adaptation of Christie’s Death on the Nile. The first, released in 1978, starred the late Peter Ustinov as the famous detective.
Screenwriter Michael Green also returns in this star-studded murder mystery which features turns from Gal Gadot (Wonder Woman), Armie Hammer (Call Me By Your Name), Sophie Okonedo (Dirty Pretty Things, Wild Rose), Annette Bening, Tom Bateman and many more.
The story takes place in 1937. After a whirlwind romance in London, socialite Linnet Ridgeway (Gadot) and handsome lothario Simon Doyle (Hammer) invite a group of their friends and family to celebrate their honeymoon on board a plush river steamer on the Nile. Poirot’s own Egyptian holiday is suddenly derailed by the newlyweds who beg the Belgian sleuth to help protect them from Simon’s jealous ex fiancée Jacqueline de Bellefort (Emma Mackey), who also happens to be one of Linnet’s oldest friends. As things would have it, disaster strikes onboard, leaving it to Poirot to solve yet another murder mystery.
There is something rather vulgar about an adaptation taking place in the 2020s which fails to offer any kind of alternative worldview on the wealth and opulence on display here, especially in one of the poorest regions of the Middle East at the time. Branagh and Green have missed the mark in this adaptation by failing to make any kind of post-colonial commentary despite having ample opportunity and the means to do so.
Furthermore, the film simply doesn’t look good. With excessive use of CGI and some questionable de-aging techniques in the excruciatingly misjudged opening sequence, Death On The Nile often feels clunky, overinflated and very silly in parts. Granted there are some decent performances, mainly courtesy of Okonedo (playing ballsy Blues singer Salome Otterbourne), Gadot and Mackey, but on the whole, the film simply fails to present a valid reason for its existence.
Death on The Nile promised so much, but sadly failed to deliver on all accounts. And while the film should be commended for its colour blind casting throughout, there is sadly nothing here that hasn’t already been done before.
In the end, the film’s only saving grace comes in the shape of a brilliantly upbeat Blues music soundtrack, courtesy of Patrick Doyle. It’s a big disappointment on the Nile.