Haunted Venice

Remember the classic Agatha Christie story everyone talks about? No? Well, here's a movie of it anyway.

It's Halloween in a haunted house... that happens to be in Italy. Poirot happens to be there and there's a murder... because of course there is. But there are also spookiness, spirits, ghosts and goblins. After the inciting incident, we get the classic interviews and then... accidentally Poirot solves the case! Huzzah! (Like I'm giving away that he does that...)

This feels more like an excuse for Kenneth Branagh to film a spoopy story... and to be fair, he films it well. There are some nice touches, and great shots... but as a Poirot story, it feels like it's missing something. Because outside of that there haunted aspect, there isn't much too it. There are some leaps of logic that only Poirot gets, of course, otherwise the audience would be ahead, and Agatha would never have that... although she reused enough plots that you could work out some of her stories ahead of time.

And speaking of Agatha, we have Tiny Fey as Agatha Christie Ariadne Oliver, but I always felt like Agatha self-inserted herself with more care, and certainly more subtlety, than what we get here. There are less big names in this one, at least less that I recognise. Aside from Michelle Yeoh of course, living out another Evelyn.

At not even 2 hours, this doesn't outstay things, but still feels like there could have been some trimming. I can't say that I fully recommend seeing this in a theatre, but I did get in for the advance screening, so I'm not the best poster boy for waiting.

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