Contemporary blockbuster filmmaking is all about the origin story, so naturally, in “Death on the Nile,” his follow-up to the 2017 Agatha Christie mystery “Murder on the Orient Express,” director/star Kenneth Branagh details the nascence of one of his most fascinating recent screen creations: Hercule Poirot’s mustache. In “Murder on the Orient Express,” the seemingly sentient facial hair wasn’t worn by Branagh so much as it wore him, stretching from cheek to cheek in a feathered style of many layers that seemed to move almost independently of each other.
In “Death on the Nile” the tragic birth of Mustache is revealed, along with the Belgian detective’s backstory, in a black-and-white prologue set in the trenches of World War I, in which Branagh experiments with a cinematic style inspired by European early silent films (a far more interesting look than the overly shiny, digitally enhanced 65mm cinematography that follows). This war flashback illustrates Poirot’s innate facility for deductive reasoning, and also explains the disfiguring blast that inspired his signature facial hair as a cosmetic cover-up. Even more tragically, we see the love he has for Katherine (Susannah Fielding), a young nurse, the sorrow of her loss continuing to permeate his peculiar existence.
But enough about Mustache, who, unfortunately, remains one of the more intriguing supporting characters in “Death on the Nile,” with the most interesting backstory, despite the host of scandal-plagued movie stars who parade through the proceedings. But in a post-“Knives Out” world, it’s not enough to simply deliver a straightforward Christie murder mystery. Rian Johnson’s 2019 character-stuffed whodunit pretzeled in more twists than ever, plus witty social commentary about race and class, which “Death on the Nile” avoids, despite nods to diversity in casting. Johnson recently teased a hint that “Knives Out 2” may be set on a boat, which spells doom for the rather dull “Death on the Nile.”
