Death on the Nile

Death on the Nile fails to meet the high standard of its predecessor Murder on the Orient Express. That being said the film is beautifully shot and the final act is an overall fun mystery ride. The film is generally well acted and directed. One negative is that the audience is just told things a little too much. Murder on the Orient Express had a little more set up and the audience felt more of a part of the mystery early on. That aspect of storytelling felt diminished in this sequel. The mystery does not really pick up until the final act and even then some things are just explained by Detective Poirot without any of the tantalizing intrigue that the first film possessed. Murder on the Orient Express had an amazing twist with good people doing a bad thing which made the audience seriously reflect on the right and wrong of the crime. Unfortunately, Death on the Nile's big twist of bad people doing a bad thing for money felt a little flat. Murder on the Orient Express was a work of art. Death on the Nile is a decent mystery movie.

I don't really like the first "Murder On The Orient Express" so I watch this with little expectations. And as expected, this movie is a let down.

The acting is average. CGI is mediocre. And the story is weak. When the murder happens I can already tell who's the killer, and how the murderer did it.

I don't understand why they add the war scene. Just to tell audience why Poirot grow magnificent moustache? That totally unnecessary.

I've read a lot of Poirot novel, this is a different way to depict him. And in a bad way.

The book is simple. The book is not a long book just short of a 300 pages, so why the unnecessary changes to the characters from the book? It either broke interesting characters or completely removed them. Some characters from the book are combined in a single character in the movie and not for the best. WHY??? These changes completely ruined the smooth structure of the book to "simplify" it for modern audiences I suppose but again, WHY? The book is not that difficult to follow. Another thing that ruined the movie is the horrendous CGI. The CGI looks like a cutscene from a Playstation 3 game. The green screen OMG looks like someone cutout the character from a green screen with his phone and then pasted on a badly drawn background. And lastly the acting. I'm sorry but most of the cast were bad, which is sad because most of them proved their talent in other projects (except Gal Gadot. All she has is a beautiful smile) Skip this movie. If you want a good detective story go read the book. It's not a long story. You'll probably finish the book a day. 3-4 days if english is not your first language. Yes it's that easy to read through and understand it.

While there are a few things wrong with this film, the main issue for me was the music that was used.

The blues music in this film is not a good fit. In the scene toward the beginning of the movie it didn't match well with the club, dancing, and actions taking place. While in some other setting in some other movie it might be ok- this was a terrible choice for the film. Just google popular music in the late 1930's and you'll see many songs that would be a better choice.

Each time the music is playing subsequently in the film it's cringeworthy and distracting. It makes me wonder who made the choice to include it. Maybe the music was free to use and the budget was too tight with this film?

The 1978 movie is a lot better, maybe just watch that one.

I hope a genius like Kenneth Branagh can find another outlet for his directorial style and leave Dame Christie alone. I guess he fancies himself Poirot and wants that role. Like with Orient Express, he is not all that interesting. If anything, he gets a little too flamboyant at times. The story is great in the book. Here it plods along, taking nearly the first half for anything to happen. It's more than exposition. In one scene there is a menu of characters presented to the viewer. Show them. Don't tell them. I have to say I was disappointed because I was told by a friend that this was really an excellent movie. Live and learn.