Screenwriter Michael Green and director-star Kenneth Branagh have coaxed another gold-effect egg from that plump goose which is the Agatha Christie estate. Legendary moustachioed Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot, played by Branagh, is back for another ensemble outing with many biggish-to-big names phoning it in for the paycheck. This movie appears to be trying for a tougher, nastier, horror-ish feel, perhaps to scoop up some of the younger scary-movie fanbase alongside the Werther’s Original demographic that normally turns out for this kind of thing.
The timeline follows on from the previous Poirot case, Death on the Nile; the year is 1947, and Hercule Poirot is in genial retirement in Venice, where he employs ex-cop Vitale (Riccardo Scamarcio) as his personal bodyguard. But his friend, the bestselling American mystery author Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey) is in town. She impishly persuades him to come with her to a Halloween séance being conducted at a nearby palazzo by the famous psychic Mrs Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh) – with a view, of course, to debunking her. Horrible events ensue. Could sinister ghostly forces be at work? Well, Poirot takes a refreshingly atheist view and, like the Scooby-Doo gang, believes that supernatural phenomena and non-rational explanations are a diversionary tactic promoted by those with something to hide.
