★★★☆☆

Kenneth Branagh gets his face fur back on for his second Poirot movie, Death On The Nile. Here’s our review.

Much has changed since we last saw Kenneth Branagh put on a fake moustache and solve a crime on the big screen. In theory, following up 2017’s hit adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Murder On The Orient Express was to be a straightforward plan. Branagh, as both director and in the lead role of Hercule Poirot, teased that Death On The Nile would be his next case at the end of the first film, and the movie duly started shooting two and a half years ago.

Since it was greenlit, just to recap: parent studio Fox was sold to Disney, a global pandemic enveloped the Earth, one of the film’s ensemble – Armie Hammer – is facing allegations of rape, to the point where there were concerns the movie would be released at all – and Branagh has made an entirely different film, Belfast, that’s become an Oscar favourite.

It’d be remiss to say that Disney is thus releasing Death On The Nile without much fanfare, but most of the noise has been around the film, rather than about it. Get to the main feature proper, and there’s another tidy, diverting murder mystery, that doesn’t rip up any rulebooks and delivers pretty much what we got last time.

The closest the new film gets to going rogue is a new prologue sequence, presented in black and white, that introduces us to why Poirot grew his quite splendid facial tuft. Stylish and arresting, it soon gives way to the warmth of more exotic settings, as familiar ingredients are assembled. The structure of the story brings together a bunch of linked people who each board a steamer cruising along the Nile. Motivations and links between them all are established, and the backthreading takes a sizeable amount of time to set this up.

I’d argue that this is where the new film of Death On The Nile is having the most fun, too. Michael Green’s adapted screenplay takes time to give a broad cast each a moment in the spotlight, and they happily play along. Standouts are Annette Bening’s painter and disapproving mother, Gal Gadot’s Linnet, and Emma Mackey as Jacqueline, a woman spurned by Hammer’s Simon. Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders are very welcome too as Mrs Bowers and Marie Van Schuyler, whilst Sophie Okonedo is steadfastly excellent, and belts out a hell of a time. Russell Brand meanwhile is highly restrained and for a while pretty unrecognisable as Dr Windlesham.

An aside: there had been some talk of Hammer’s role being edited out of the film when allegations about his personal life arose, just as Ridley Scott reshot elements of All The Money In The World to remove Kevin Spacey. Watching the final cut of Death On The Nile, the cast is so interwoven it’s clear why that wasn’t an option.

Anyway, surprisingly deep into the film we get – this is hardly a spoiler – a murder, and a slightly tipsy Hercule Poirot is back in action. Which is where the air starts to come out of it a bit.

Branagh clearly relished the role, wrapping his tongue around the Belgian tones of the iconic sleuth, at one point putting him across as a bit of an action star. But for a character at the centre of the piece, Poirot himself is about the least interesting figure in it. The rest of the tale, post-murder, becomes the same kind of big screen Cluedo as its forerunner. The characters are all contained on a moving vehicle, tensions rise, clues are left behind, and, well, Poirot does what Poirot does. I don’t think the cast here is quite as strong as last time, but you’re not shortchanged.

It’s a beautifully and lavishly shot film, with cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos enjoying the refractions through windows as much as the sun-baked River Nile. Furthermore, it’s admirable how much Branagh’s film is its own entity, resisting the temptation to make this more of a sequel to Murder On The Orient Express than it needs to be.

And yet set against something like Rian Johnson’s Knives Out – the first sequel to which arrives later this year – Death On The Nile can’t help but feel a little more traditional and notably less fun. It feels more on rails than ambitious, with the decorations, ensemble and gloss giving it the identity it has.

Still, just as with Murder On The Orient Express, it’s fine fodder, suitably labyrinthine, and really quite comfortable. And that’s where it stops. The affection for the source material is clear, but should Sir Kenneth be tempted to strap on the face fur again, a little more spark and more of an imprint wouldn’t hurt.

Death On The Nile is released on Friday 11th February 2022.