Movie Review: 'Death on the Nile' is a Bloated Corpse of a Blockbuster

Death on the Nile is a shockingly bloated and silly mystery movie. Directed by the otherwise brilliant Kenneth Branagh, this blockbuster feels tossed off on a whim with little care to make sure the central mystery was even worthy of a movie. As gorgeous and opulent as the production design for Death on the Nile is, the beauty of the movie only serves to magnify the emptiness of the main characters, plot and dialogue of Death on the Nile.

Death on the Nile returns Kenneth Branagh to the role of famed Detective Hercule Poirot. In flashback we see Poirot’s heroism in the trenches of World War 1. We see how Poirot’s unique mind proves to be a remarkable asset, even in the chaos of a bloody and deadly war as he outsmarts his superiors with a plan to sneak attack German soldiers and retake a strategic bridge, one essential to the future of the war. It all goes to plan until one soldier fails to heed Poirot’s warning leading to a tripwire and a deadly explosion.

While the scene is intended to demonstrate Poirot’s uniquely intuitive mind, it also, apropos of nothing, serves as the origin story for his garish mustache. As he is comforted by the love of his life, she observes his injury and recommends he grow a large mustache to cover the deformed scar above his lip. Why we would need an origin story for Poirot’s mustache is unclear and these scenes feel redundant considering we’ve already watched Poirot employ his brilliant deduction skills in Murder on the Orient Express.

That is merely the first 10 minutes of the movie and we’re already exhausted. Then it is time to introduce the plot of Death on the Nile. As Poirot dines and drinks alone at a French Jazz Club, he watches a romantic disaster slowly unfold. Naïve socialite Jacqueline de Bellefort (Emma Mackey) has fallen head over heels in love with a hunky playboy named Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer) and we know this from their gaudy display on the dance floor. So besotted is poor young Jacqueline that she completely misses when her friend and fellow socialite, Linnet (Gal Gadot), grabs Simon’s attention. Poirot can see it but poor Jacqueline appears oblivious.

Cut to a mere three months later and the uber-rich Linnet is now married to Simon with the couple planning a lavish romantic getaway with their wedding party in Egypt. By some coincidence, Poirot also happens to be in Egypt. He’s being coy about why he’s there but it is vaguely related to a young man he supposedly knew in the war, another rich playboy named Bouc (Tom Bateman). (The name is pronounced Book.) Bouc is on holiday with his wealthy mother, played by Annette Bening, and the idea that Branagh is friends with the son of Annette Bening as opposed to being more familiar with Bening is a rather unintended insult to Bening, as if she were ancient while Branagh is still relatively young. FYI, Bening is 63 and Branagh is 61 while Tom Bateman is 32 years old. Careful Mr. Branagh, your vanity is showing.

Bouc and his mother are a plot convenience as they are in Egypt as guests of Simon and Linnet for their wedding. They conveniently have the power to invite Poirot to the wedding and the post-wedding getaway on a massive boat on the Nile River. This also places Poirot conveniently into the orbit of Linnet who fears that a now scorned and bitter Jacqueline may be trying to sabotage her happily ever after. Linnet and Simon approach Poirot for help with the Jacqueline problem even as there is nothing a private eye has the power to do in this situation.

Poirot is a detective, he’s paid to deduce criminal motivations, uncover hidden crimes, recover lost items and point the finger at murderers. He’s not a tough guy and he’s not a security guard so why would Simon or Linnet want to approach him regarding Jacqueline? Jacqueline may be scheming against the happy couple but that's neither a mystery, she's not subtle, or a crime. Nevertheless, they invite Poirot to their wedding and like a bad luck charm, bodies start to drop once Poirot comes aboard.

The plot construction of Death on the Nile is exceptionally weak. This flimsy excuse to get Poirot into the story takes up screen time similar to the backstory of his mustache and similarly exists to pad out the movie and comes off as a desperate excuse to get Poirot where there may be a murder he can solve. Whereas Murder on the Orient Express felt roughly organic in that Poirot just happened to be on the train where a murder occurred, Death on the Nile spins its wheels trying to convolute a way to get him into this plot. Episodes of Murder She Wrote more elegantly place their main sleuth in the path of murder than this lavish, big budget Hollywood production.

Poor Gal Gadot cannot catch a break. It appears that no director, other than perhaps Patty Jenkins, knows what to do with Gadot. Her otherworldly beauty requires a story and a director capable of layering in a recognizable, human personality. A hands off director like a Rawson Thurber Marshall on Red Notice or Branagh here, appear at a loss as to how to give her depth beyond focusing on her remarkable beauty. To these directors, Gadot is a blunt force object of male desire. As for Gadot herself, she’s more than a capable actress, as she showed in Wonder Woman, but without a good character she settles into delivering only what is asked of her and in this case, that’s not much beyond being excessively attractive.

I haven’t even mentioned a large portion of this all star cast because their inclusion here requires so much explanation as to not be worth the time. Letitia Wright, Russell Brand, Sophie Okenedo and the famed comedy duo of Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders round out the cast of potential suspects in the murders that eventually do happen but they are wasted in underwritten and outright boring roles. Why hire comedians with the talent and magnetism of French and Saunders and Russell Brand and then give them nothing interesting to do? It’s a baffling choice. Brand, in particular, plays a character so buttoned up and straight-laced that he appears allergic to his own innate charisma.

Death on the Nile is a spectacular failure, a lavish, gaudy, expensive flop that fails as a mystery and as a trifle of popcorn entertainment. Branagh clearly has an idea that this is a high minded franchise, the thinking man’s blockbuster, if you will. Sadly, his pretension apparently blinded him to the rather obvious failings of script, character and performance in Death on the Nile. While monumental sums were dished out for settings and costumes, the makers of Death on the Nile failed to fill those settings and costumes with anything worth more than gawking at.