Death on the Nile (2022)

Score: 4 / 5

Thank goodness Kenneth Branagh can still surprise us. In his follow-up to Murder on the Orient Express (in 2017, five years ago, can you believe?!), he returns to the Poirot pot and gives us inklings of greatness. The previous installment in Branagh's burgeoning franchise left a lot to be desired for this viewer, but any effort to make a fairly stoic, period mystery would be challenging for most major studios right now; while I disagree with his choices to make certain parts action-based and illogically melodramatic, I understand that he wanted it to be accessible and entertaining for younger audiences and to make lots of money. But I'm grateful this time that he chose an Agatha Christie story that lends itself quite well to more of those action-packed money shots.

This time, it's out of the snowbound Alps and into the sparkling, expansive Nile valley. Hercule Poirot (Branagh) is again hard at work, both in solving the titular crime -- although the body count increases dramatically -- and in dealing with his own history. We open with a black-and-white flashback scene in WWI, with a convincingly digitally de-aged Poirot getting injured and falling in love with the nurse who aided him and encouraged him to grow a large mustache to hide his scars. It opens the film with surprising tragedy and violence but also warmth and actual romance, all things that were notably missing from the previous film. It feels, this time, that writer Michael Green (American Gods, Logan, Alien: Covenant, Blade Runner 2049, and Jungle Cruise) hits his stride a bit more confidently and with good reason. His tweaks to the source material, as before, wonderfully diversify the cast, but this time it feels more earned and less forced; his other additions -- especially including Bouc (the wonderful Tom Bateman) -- are truly inspired, and I just about lost my mind when the third body hit the floor nearer to the climax of this film.

I don't really want to go over the beats of this film, because as with any mystery, half the joy is taking the journey with the characters. And what a journey this story takes, along a lush and exotic Nile river cruise in 65mm film. To be fair, most if not all of it is certainly digitally enhanced or completely manufactured, but this is big-budget moviemaking and it never feels less than ridiculously expensive. The costumes are breathtaking and shimmering in the bright lights, the champagne flows in bubbling rivers, and the S.S. Karnak, a honeymoon river boat on the Nile, shines with hardwood floors and windows for days. I noticed at least one crocodile action shot, too, and that made me impossibly joyful. 

And then there is the cast, which is as varied and beautiful and talented as any ensemble picture we've had in a while. Whereas the previous film's cast often felt underwritten and misdirected, this cast actively breathes in the grandiosity of its surroundings and leans into the glittering bourgeois atmosphere with vivacity. I was especially pleased with Sophie Okonedo and Letitia Wright as the jazz-singing Otterbournes, though the character of Bouc's mother Euphemia is lovely as played by Annette Bening. Then there are the stars, the handsome Armie Hammer as Simon Doyle and his beautiful fiancee Jacqueline de Bellefort, played by Emma Mackey, whose intensely sensual introduction in the film felt a little jarring considering the allegations of abuse and assault against him in real life. Then enters Gal Gadot as the impossibly gorgeous heiress Linnet Ridgeway, for whom Simon leaves his fiancee and gets quickly married, leaving a distraught Jacqueline to follow them hauntingly and hauntedly around the world.

Who else? The ensemble includes Ali Fazal, Russell Brand (almost unrecognizable and underutilized, thankfully), Rose Leslie, and even the achingly trenchant real-life comedy duo of Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French. It's hard to give everyone equal time, but the balance is better on the Karnak than it was on the Orient Express, even with each character mostly deconstructed to a few basic traits. At least they look pretty! And the actors do significant work to each feel sympathetic and suspicious when the screenplay gives them precious little to do. I found Mackey and Okonedo the most joyful to watch, other than Bateman of course, but this affair as a whole is more emotionally satisfying, visually splendid, and less illogical in scope and style than Branagh's previous Christie adaptation. I didn't expect to say this, but I do rather hope for more from this series, even though at the current rate they're being produced we'll be lucky to have half a dozen in total. I'm hoping for Evil Under the Sun next.