Movie Review: Death on the Nile (2022)

Death on the Nile (2022) directed by Kenneth Branagh based on the novel by Agatha Christie

Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) is vacationing in Egypt when he's drawn into a couple's (Armie Hammer's Simon Doyle and Gal Gadot's Linnet Ridgeway) honeymoon. They've brought a bunch of friends along to celebrate because she's fabulously rich and can afford it; the only problem is Simon dumped Jacqueline (Emma Mackey) six weeks ago when he met Linnet. Jacqueline is following them around, making things awkward for the newlyweds. Linnet asks Poirot to help them though he demurs when it is clear that Jacqueline has done nothing illegal...yet. Poirot joins the destination honeymoon group and quickly discovers that a lot of other people also don't like Linnet (who does seem fairly nice) for various reasons. The couple rents a boat to try and avoid the ex but she shows up anyway. One evening when Linnet goes to bed early, Jacqueline winds up shooting Simon in the leg, causing chaos. The next morning, Linnet is discovered dead. Poirot is on the case now.

While the novel is a labyrinthine murder mystery, this movie can't quite decide between that and being an examination of how tragic and difficult love is. The movie starts with a black and white scene of young Poirot on the World War I battlefield where he is horribly injured. His nurse/girlfriend recommends he grow a mustache to hide his scars. The various suspects in the honeymoon party (why a destination honeymoon?) have a variety of relationships with each other that are slowly revealed throughout the movie. Poirot turns out to be as much a relationship therapist as a private detective; he's also infatuated with one of the suspects. After the mystery is solved, there's a good ten minutes of resolving various romantic relationships, which I would have been happy to skip. I can see what they were going for but I did not want to go there.

The cinematography is interesting with some nice, sweeping shots. Egypt looks great for the most part though some scenes look like CGI, especially on the deck of the boat. So the visuals were a mixed bag too. A couple of the characters are jazz musicians, so the movie has a lot of nice blues and jazz songs from the 1930s (or at least in the 1930s style).

Not recommended--the Peter Ustinov version is better, though the book is (naturally) best.