Although retired, Hercule Poirot has to fend off hordes of journalists. He even hired a bodyguard. The intrusive pen doesn’t hesitate to drop it from the bridge between the Venetian canals where the famous detective is enjoying his rest. In the new film The Phantoms of Venice, which will be shown in cinemas from Thursday, a mystery will finally appear, which will arouse the hero’s curiosity.
English actor Sir Kenneth Branagh brings Agatha Christie’s stories to life for the third time in front of and behind the camera. This time even more embarrassed than before. After a promising, light-hearted introduction in the streets of Venice, there is an encounter that thrusts the mustachioed detective back into action. However, it is much more intimate than before.
Even Branagh’s first film with Poirot, Murder on the Orient Express from 2017, tried to give the famous investigator both grandeur and a modern twist. A more action-packed introduction, a stellar cast, opulent camera pans on the train where most of the action takes place, shooting on 70mm film.
But in the end, the film felt as cheesy as Branagh’s unnaturally massive moustache. In contrast to the fresh, funny and modern deviations from tradition in the Sherlock Holmes stories, such as the British BBC series, it turned out to be rather clumsy. The plethora of characters remained one-dimensional and compared to the slow finale classic movie versions in this detective story directed by Sidney Lumet from 1974, the final theater on the dorms seemed undignified.
After another exotic adventure Death on the Nile, Branagh now returns for the third time. And much more settled. The opening shots may be tempting to photogenic Venice, but when Poirot is visited by an old acquaintance with an offer to take part in a Halloween séance and reveal the con artist, the plot moves inside a darkened mansion, where communication with the dead is said to occur. The loose adaptation of Agatha Christie’s late book I Saw a Murder oscillates between classic detective story and ghostly horror. Not a happy choice.
Originally mainly a Shakespearean actor, Branagh in his Poirot films is able to give the detective the right perspective and a prickly view of humanity, but as a director he seems much less confident. His news is extremely serious most of the time, with deaths and suspects piling up. Even Poirot himself – armed above all with unwavering rationality – hesitates for a moment as to the nature of the surrounding phenomena. Although in the beginning he discovers the fraud with the self-writing typewriter and a few other tricks, the mystery eventually starts to grow over his head.
Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot. | Photo: 20th Century Studios
But despite the various twists and false conclusions, The Phantoms of Venice lacks any real tension, be it detective suspense or horror horror. Both genres undermine each other’s legs.
Once again, Branagh wanders through the pantheon of his one-dimensional characters, trying tried-and-true horror tricks along the way. So proven that its seriousness seems comical. A face in a mirror that disappears when turned, a suddenly falling cup of coffee, all shot in a sleek, academic, sterile way. The coloring book-like digital shots of previous films and their exotic locations have been replaced by intimate indifference.
When in the opening Poirot exchanges a few lines with a writer played by the comedian Tina Fey, who invites him to solve the mystery, the film raises false expectations that it will be dominated by funny exchanges of words. But Tina Fey’s character remains virtually unused, as does the spirit medium played by Michelle Yeoh and most of the cast. Although rare, Branagh’s exchanges with Tina Fey are still among the best. For example, when Poirot says: “If you wake a bear, don’t be surprised that it dances.” To which he gets a dry reply: “This is not a saying in any language.” Such moments are few and far between.
Otherwise, the film, due to the same unexciting pace with which it throws us other loops in the story, fails to do the basic thing: to make the audience feel that solving the mystery is at least half as exciting for them as for the brilliant detective himself.
The claustrophobic environment of the house, which the storm separates from the surroundings – which in itself is quite powerful – will trap not only the heroes. It is also a prison for the audience, but certainly not one that they would like to stay in as part of the cinema experience. Instead of cinematic horror, what appears to be part of ordinary punishment is probably much more: routine and boredom.
Michelle Yeoh plays Mrs. Reynolds. | Photo: 20th Century Studios
At the same time, it is definitely possible to understand Agatha Christie in a modern way and in your own way. The film Knives or Quentin Tarantino played with the writer’s traditional methods amusingly and subversively in the western The Eight Horrible. Although they were not adaptations of her works, both films were able to pay more homage to her work than the trying and uninspiring Branagh.
He seems to have one foot in the theater even after decades of being on the film set. There, every cup of coffee must fall to the ground with a proper crash to make everything obvious. In the film, similar pieces of presentation seem rather clumsy. And finally, even the green wallpaper of the headquarters or the leather covers of books cease to have the impressiveness of a period detail and become props in a narrative burdened with antiquity.
Even those who were not fans of the previous two Poirot films will still be happy to remember the earlier overshot adventures.
Finally, the desired point comes. It doesn’t surprise, yet it offers at least some believable emotions. And above all, it liberates from captivity in the tedious labyrinth in which it was supposed to haunt. With all that waiting for a brilliant solution to the case, the viewer might be more grateful for a real bugger.
Film
Ghosts in Venice
Directed by: Kenneth Branagh
Falcon, Czech premiere on September 14.
