Pass the chimichangas, please. We’ve still have some time to wait before Deadpool 2 arrives in theaters (and hopefully not too long before a trailer), but that hasn’t stopped 20th Century Fox from dropping a sweet and wholesome poster of the incoming sequel. Here we see Deadpool joined by Cable (Josh Brolin) serving a Thanksgiving feast to the entire “Deadpool family.” That includes Vanessa…
Cast: Edward Norton (The Narrator/Jack), Brad Pitt (Tyler Durden), Helena Bonham Carter (Marla Singer), Meat Loaf (Robert “Bob” Paulsen), Jared Leto (Angel Face), Zach Grenier (Richard Chesler)
Through quirks of media mega-mergers and studios shunting movies to streaming during the pandemic, Kennth Branaugh has relased three films since 2020. Belfast is probably the universally agreed upon best and Artemis Fowl the worst. Death on the Nile is somewhere in the middle, un victim je pense, of a mediocre script adaptation and too-serious tone.
What happened to make this movie so bleh? I think Michael Green happened. Some of his changes from book to film are modern and inspired (the Otterbournes and the Schuylers); some are odd (the crew announcing “we’re going ashore” then not having that be significant? Flashbacks, really serious flashbacks, Poirot getting Hulk-angry.) These tonal choices are consistent with his and Branaugh’s adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express and I think they misfired in that adaptation as well.
The cast is … not bad. Agatha Christie’s work merits more context than I’m putting on it here, but the people caught up in a murder plot are usually rich, glamourous, and largly assholes. To that end, disliking anyone in the cast won’t necessarily negatively impact your viewing. But back to Christie for a moment: her characters frequently exhibit racist, xenophobic, sexist, greedy behavior. Sometimes we’re meant to see these as flaws and sometimes it’s Poirot’s benevolent sexism or something akin to the “period racism” tag on AO3. Christie definitely trucked in sterotypes we’d call racist and would apply them to characters of which we’re supposed to be suspicious. This is stripped out of this movie and that’s a good thing.
Despite the music being slightly less ponderous than Murder on the Orient Express (Patrick Doyle provides the music in both) the whole journey remains too serious. I don’t mean that murder isn’t serious but the prologue is Poirot’s flashback to WWI, a scene that I suppose only Branaugh’s staus saved from being cut. We witness Poirot’s emotional breakdown discussing love with Jacqueline and his impressive anger which makes him seem a little unhinged. I’d be unhinged in these cricumstances but he gets so worked up it undermines our confidence in the great detective.
What makes this worth the watch are the costumes and setting. Venture any farther upriver and you’re bound to be dissapointed.
![theartofthecover:Buffy the Vampire Slayer #33 [Textless] (Incentive Variant Cover) (2022)Art by: Gre](https://64.media.tumblr.com/c8c495785fb2136ec673de1421e3d1a6/1ad2ac5bc1e951d8-7c/s1280x1920/54cd99fabb030ca28caa1a3a4e772a53b4ca20a9.jpg "theartofthecover:Buffy the Vampire Slayer #33 [Textless] (Incentive Variant Cover) (2022)Art by: Gre")
