78% on Rotten Tomatoes(out of 121 reviews)
Runtime: 103 minutes
Directed by: Kenneth Branagh
Starring: Branagh, Tina Fey, Jamie Dornan, Amir El-Masry, Michelle Yeoh
From: 20th Century Studios
Not the film I was expecting to be my 3,000th (!) reviewed here on Letterboxd, but that's OK. At least it's a big theatrical release, a continuation of a franchise that been fine (it has never risen to the level of greatness, but thankfully has never turned into a disaster either), and features several famous faces. There isn't as many as in Orient and Nile; at the same time, it must have been a relief for Kenneth Branagh that unlike Death on the Nile, this did not have multiple people in the cast engaging in controversial behavior. In addition, I was able to see this last night as at various AMC locations they had an Early Access screening. Every attendee received both a lobby card and of all things, a luggage tag. Luggage plays no role in the film but I could still use that sometime in the future. If only it could be an actual trip to Venice, Italy...
If you liked the first two, you'll probably concur w/ that opinion concerning this mystery featuring Branagh as Hercule Poirot... although, the tone is overall darker than in the first two. For those wary of the horror elements because it's a genre you just don't care for... for almost everyone it won't be soil your pants terrifying. It's still appropriate for this time of year: a cursed building (a palazzo, to be exact), a séance held on Halloween, weird sounds, a young woman who died the year before, and Poirot of course being a skeptic yet he starts experiencing what seems like supernatural elements...
To be a little more specific, Poirot is a now-retired, old bitter ex-detective who is brought out of retirement by author pal Tina Fey to watch the séance and try to figure out how medium Michelle Yeoh is faking it. Not everything is as it seems, and I won't expand upon that thought. It's a handsomely-mounted production shot on location in a suitable palazzo where an intriguing mystery is presented—I don't regret the theatrical experience, in other words. The darker tone led to a more introspective look at the character and the effect his trauma mixed w/ his brusque manner has had on his life. Thus, that is why this gets slightly higher marks than the first two movies.
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