Some spoilers ahead though I’ve tried to be good

Kenneth Branagh directs and performs with aplomb, but in trying to hermetically seal this Christie caper, he’s ended up with a decidedly stretched and creaky adaptation.

The decision to remake some of Dame Agatha Christie’s more famous works – with Kenneth Branagh both in front and behind the camera – caused quite a lot of excitement among Christie fans, with ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ (2017) being a modest hit despite the novel’s occasional staginess and one prominent cast member’s significant brush with the #MeToo movement and dressing down in the British libel courts. One pandemic and five years later and Branagh’s iteration of Poirot is back, now with an explanation for that rather outlandish mustache and a backstory that helps to explain some of the references in Christie’s novels to her detective’s horticultural interests. It’s an interesting addition, and if his backstory doesn’t quite have the strength of John Malkovich’s iteration of Poirot – ‘The ABC Murders’, it does set us up for one quite funny scene – these Christie adaptations are happy to indulge in some humour – and a clue to where Branagh’s adaptive skills may be pointed next.

There’s certainly plenty to like here. The scenery is often beautiful and aside from a few poor efforts with green screen, the whole thing looks lovely. There are also some fine set pieces, strong comic asides, and an added depth to key character Linnet Doyle/Ridgeway that makes this a far finer iteration of her than I’ve seen on screen or in the text. Props go to writer Michael Green and actress Gal Gadot for that. The cast are generally solid with particular praise for Branagh himself and Russell Brand who delivers a sombre and mannered performance as a spurned lover.

A lot of the joy in a Christie can be found in there being a set of possible suspects so that the reader/viewer can play along with the fun. That potential staginess – a staple feature of the Golden Age of Crime – survives where a geographical impediment aids belief that no outsiders could be involved. ‘Orient Express’ has its Russian snow, ‘And Then There Were None’ has its island during a brutal storm. ‘Death on the Nile’ has well… its ship. On the Nile. And while this may not be the most sealed of environments, Christie was able to an extent carry this through successfully by having it be a cruise of well-to-do people who wouldn’t need to deal with the riff-raff bar those below decks (and even then, an early suspect in Christie’s book is exactly that). Returning ‘Orient Express’ scribe Michael Green has dispensed with this possibility of an outside party completely, explaining the enclosed nature of the tour by making it an exclusive wedding party cruise. This creates a logistical awkwardness from early doors, meaning that certain scenes later on have to be altered in order to suit the set-up.

Further, he’s removed/subsumed two characters – thereby reducing a suspect list that the wedding party format seemed designed to bolster. There’s also now no evidence of the Egyptian police – odd considering the growing body count – meaning Poirot stalks the ship searching rooms and badgering passengers. Christie’s original design – including having some passengers who were unconnected to the victim – allowed for police presence in the figure of Colonel Race. This built an authenticity to proceedings now absent and created a more effective foil for Poirot to work alongside. Instead he’s given the returning Tom Bateman’s Bouc, who does well but can’t quite fit into a narrative that requires him to be both sidekick and – as part of the wedding party – suspect.

Branagh has created an interesting, stylish film that, despite more broad-shouldered shaped #MeToo problems, will probably do reasonably well at the box office. It’s already made its budget back and will probably do more business before its move to Video on Demand and an audience more comfortable watching at home (and in some cases, more suited to watching Christie adaptations from the comfort of their sofas on a lazy Sunday evening). There is probably enough once the numbers have been totalled for him to get another adaptation – although mooted plans for a ‘Christie Universe’ may prove a stretch.

As a fan, I’d like to see him adapt ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’, and I thought I saw enough hints in this film to think that’s where he will go. But he and Green will need to work better to overcome what they see as Christie’s weaknesses without painting themselves into the corner they have this time. The Golden Age of Crime-style narratives certainly have an appeal in the 21st Century as evidenced by the success of ‘Knives Out’, but the right kind of inventiveness will be needed if one form of plot implausibility isn’t simply to be replaced with contrivances.

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