Kenneth Branagh loves making Agatha Christie movies, but it's not necessarily something he's great at. None of his movies are near the top of the Christie films, but Branagh does the slick celebrity Christie movie well enough that they're worth watching if you keep your expectations low.
At first, Haunting in Venice looked like a movie where low expectations might not be necessary at all. The haunted mansion setting is very stylishly filmed, starting with a great shadow puppet story and giving us mysterious gondolas on the canal and people in spooky masks. And Michelle Yeoh is terrific as a medium hired to run a seance to contact the owner's suicided daughter.
Soon there's a body and Poirot is on the case. But besides the usual human suspects, could the murder have something to do with ... ghosts?
The nods to the spirit world are a little out of the norm for Christie's mysteries (although she did actually write some spooky stories outside her mysteries), but I don't think it's too much, played as it is in a spiritual ambiguity where you can choose to explain it all away rationally - or not.
The movie is a lot of fun at first, but runs into troubles along the way. First there is the issue of Ariadne Oliver, who seems off. I read all Christie's books 40 years ago, so I'm hardly an authority, but Ariadne is not the character I remember, and who was a lot of fun. Tina Fey's Ariadne is fun at first, but the character lacks consistency in attitude and action, and by the end is unsatisfying.
Also, the explanation, when it comes, is overlong and a little ridiculous. So the last part of the movie drags a bit.
I actually like Branaugh's take on Poirot - maybe a little too angsty, but at least not as excessively so as in Death on the Nile. And I did like the high-style haunted house vibe. But the denouement dragged on.
Still, overall I think I like this the best of the three Branaugh films. Who knows, maybe if he makes enough of them he'll finally make a great one.
At first, Haunting in Venice looked like a movie where low expectations might not be necessary at all. The haunted mansion setting is very stylishly filmed, starting with a great shadow puppet story and giving us mysterious gondolas on the canal and people in spooky masks. And Michelle Yeoh is terrific as a medium hired to run a seance to contact the owner's suicided daughter.
Soon there's a body and Poirot is on the case. But besides the usual human suspects, could the murder have something to do with ... ghosts?
The nods to the spirit world are a little out of the norm for Christie's mysteries (although she did actually write some spooky stories outside her mysteries), but I don't think it's too much, played as it is in a spiritual ambiguity where you can choose to explain it all away rationally - or not.
The movie is a lot of fun at first, but runs into troubles along the way. First there is the issue of Ariadne Oliver, who seems off. I read all Christie's books 40 years ago, so I'm hardly an authority, but Ariadne is not the character I remember, and who was a lot of fun. Tina Fey's Ariadne is fun at first, but the character lacks consistency in attitude and action, and by the end is unsatisfying.
Also, the explanation, when it comes, is overlong and a little ridiculous. So the last part of the movie drags a bit.
I actually like Branaugh's take on Poirot - maybe a little too angsty, but at least not as excessively so as in Death on the Nile. And I did like the high-style haunted house vibe. But the denouement dragged on.
Still, overall I think I like this the best of the three Branaugh films. Who knows, maybe if he makes enough of them he'll finally make a great one.