[imagesource: 20th Century Studios]

Ahead of the release of Death on the Nile, we profiled how director Kenneth Branagh had not managed to get it right in terms of the actors he cast.

Armie Hammer, Russell Brand, and Letitia Wright did the movie’s PR much damage in the lead-up to the February 11 release date, with the accusations of sexual misconduct against Hammer standing out.

Initially slated to hit theatres way back in 2019, clearly, some things are not worth waiting for.

The review that really caught my attention comes via TimesLIVE’s resident film critic Tymon Smith, who called it a dud “filled with some of the most uniformly terrible acting in recent big-screen dramatic memory”:

It’s all an overindulgent, glaringly artificial, colonial-era fantasy whose dullness and sluggish pace are only occasionally and unintentionally punctured by the increasingly jaw-droppingly terrible performances of a ludicrously fake-tanned cast that leaves you desperately hoping that Branagh’s ambition for a planned “new cinematic universe of Christie adaptations” is really just a nightmare.

Ouch.

Smith’s scathing review is far from alone. Before we delve into some others, here’s the trailer:

The New York Times was also unforgiving, saying the film “forgets the simple pleasures of ensemble excess and pure messing about”:

More often than not, Branagh’s Poirot simply lacks personality, and the film’s absolutely smoldering epilogue oozes more mood than all the rest put together.

Perhaps a whiff of a compliment in there.

Bad things happen in threes. The final nail in the coffin comes via Roger Ebert’s review site:

So much of “Death on the Nile” looks empty and artificial—a glossy, CGI-rendered version of legitimately grand and impressive sights. At times, this may as well be “Death on the Nile: The Video Game.”

Given how long the film has been delayed because of the pandemic, maybe that’s what it should have been.

I’ve heard enough.

My screentime will instead be devoted to a few of the quality series doing the rounds.

[sources:timeslive&nytimes&rogerebert]