Kenneth Branagh must not have liked the original story or characters much, given all the changes he made. This is a terrible movie on many levels.
Poirot is a different character. He is now a former war hero with a lost love and a romantic side. Unforgivably, Branagh creates a major departure involving Poirot's signature moustache. There is an obligatory nod to Poirot's obsession with order and symmetry, but overall this is not the character in the Christie novels. Why didn't Kenneth Branagh just create a new detective named Branagh rather than rewriting Poirot? Agatha Christie herself found her most popular character insufferable, but she never changed him to make him more "normal."
Then there is the miscasting. Gal Gadot, who is always appealing but who has neither a British nor American accent, is not even remotely believable as British heiress Lynette Ridgeway. In addition, her backstory includes an instance in which she summers in Kennebunkbort, Maine. Perhaps visiting the Bush family? So she's a New Englander too!
In the novel, Ridgeway's lawyer is a childhood playmate and cousin named Pennington. In this movie, he is from India and named Katdhadorian. He's supposed to be family!? An elderly woman and her caretaker on board the ship (a spinster with her nurse in Christie's original), are in a lesbian relationship.
A white character in the original novel, a British writer of terrible romance novels, is transformed into a great black blues singer, Salome Otterborne, whose daughter, Rosalie, we are told, is the irresistible love interest of a British toff. It's a good thing the script tells us this, because there is no evidence of sexual attraction or infatuation on screen. Poirot delivers a paean to here, filled with white guilt, and she replies with scorn. Both of their speeches are straight out of the woke wars of the present and have nothing to do with an Agatha Christie murder mystery.
Rosalie also talks about racism she one experienced at a whites-only swimming pool in the US. So it's not just Death on the Nile. It's Death on the Mississippi Burning.
Does any of this sound like Agatha Christie? Or is Branagh just using her name to get moviegoers to watch a different film? None of these problems are helped by the excessive length, slow pacing and bad CGI . A new remake should be an improvement over previous remakes, but so much of the scenery in this film is digitally created, it feels like animation.
Avoid this. Look for an earlier TV or film version or read the book.
Poirot is a different character. He is now a former war hero with a lost love and a romantic side. Unforgivably, Branagh creates a major departure involving Poirot's signature moustache. There is an obligatory nod to Poirot's obsession with order and symmetry, but overall this is not the character in the Christie novels. Why didn't Kenneth Branagh just create a new detective named Branagh rather than rewriting Poirot? Agatha Christie herself found her most popular character insufferable, but she never changed him to make him more "normal."
Then there is the miscasting. Gal Gadot, who is always appealing but who has neither a British nor American accent, is not even remotely believable as British heiress Lynette Ridgeway. In addition, her backstory includes an instance in which she summers in Kennebunkbort, Maine. Perhaps visiting the Bush family? So she's a New Englander too!
In the novel, Ridgeway's lawyer is a childhood playmate and cousin named Pennington. In this movie, he is from India and named Katdhadorian. He's supposed to be family!? An elderly woman and her caretaker on board the ship (a spinster with her nurse in Christie's original), are in a lesbian relationship.
A white character in the original novel, a British writer of terrible romance novels, is transformed into a great black blues singer, Salome Otterborne, whose daughter, Rosalie, we are told, is the irresistible love interest of a British toff. It's a good thing the script tells us this, because there is no evidence of sexual attraction or infatuation on screen. Poirot delivers a paean to here, filled with white guilt, and she replies with scorn. Both of their speeches are straight out of the woke wars of the present and have nothing to do with an Agatha Christie murder mystery.
Rosalie also talks about racism she one experienced at a whites-only swimming pool in the US. So it's not just Death on the Nile. It's Death on the Mississippi Burning.
Does any of this sound like Agatha Christie? Or is Branagh just using her name to get moviegoers to watch a different film? None of these problems are helped by the excessive length, slow pacing and bad CGI . A new remake should be an improvement over previous remakes, but so much of the scenery in this film is digitally created, it feels like animation.
Avoid this. Look for an earlier TV or film version or read the book.