‘Death on the Nile’ review: Another brutally murdered whodunit

Kenneth Branagh is turning into one of Hollywood’s most violent serial killers. 

The director seems perfectly normal on the outside, because he’s charming on TV like Ted Bundy was. He even came across as a model citizen — like John Wayne Gacy! — when he directed 2022 Oscar favorite “Belfast.” But in reality, the man is piling up corpses . . . of Agatha Christie adaptations. 

First, there was The Case of “Murder on the Orient Express,” a miserable, poorly cast, sleepy take on the author’s most famous novel. Bad on its own terms, the film was made even worse by the fact that Sidney Lumet’s superb 1974 version, starring Lauren Bacall, Sean Connery, Ingrid Bergman and Albert Finney, is a screen classic.

Now comes The Mystery of “Death on the Nile,” based on another of Christie’s top titles. The film is set during an Egyptian river cruise, on which a new wife (Gal Gadot) begs famed Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Branagh) to come along because she believes her husband’s unhinged ex is stalking her. A killing takes place onboard, and it’s up to Poirot to catch the fiend before it’s too late.

Branagh has killed again. He’s once again taken a perfect whodunit and mangled it beyond recognition into some sort of a mummified thriller. 

Besides directing at a languid pace, he cruelly returns to the role of Poirot, which he first afflicted himself upon in “Orient Express.” It fits him like a size-0 wrap dress. The detective may be pompous and effete, but his narcissism is nothing compared to that of Branagh.

In order to give the actor some meat to gnaw on, screenwriter Michael Green has invented a downer backstory in which Poirot valiantly fights in World War I and gets a face injury after a bombing that leads to his iconic mustache. So much for mystery! Can the movie’s mood be lifted after trench warfare? 

Non, mon ami. Should-be erudite, funny Poirot dramatically hurls a meat cleaver at one point, and later cries as Branagh films one of many close-ups of himself.

It was obvious that this was the wrong part for him five years ago. Finney and, especially, David Suchet cornered the market on Poirot in their films and TV series throughout the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. What Branagh does isn’t even an admirable impression of them, but a growling, menacing reinterpretation. We leave hating this guy.

He has, to his credit, done a better job casting this time around. Legendary comedy duo Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders are reunited (although their aristocrat and nurse characters are given a new brow-raising secret). Sophie Okonedo is radiant as a blues singer named Salome, and Annette Bening fits in well as a persnickety artist. Rose Leslie, Letitia Wright, Tom Bateman and Russell Brand show up, too.

However, Gadot cannot act without a magical lasso. I don’t know who’s more wooden here — her or the boat. Unfortunately, her character’s hubby is played by accused cannibal Armie Hammer, who is also not renowned for his energy or range of expressions. With a pair like that, you root for the killer.

Branagh’s most egregious slaughtering though is his thorough misunderstanding of the whodunit genre and why we want to see these movies. In the real world, death is terribly sad and everybody is paralyzed by loss. Not in Christie. The characters are rich and heightened. Buoyant intrigue abounds. We’re mesmerized by Poirot’s humor and genius. 

Branagh’s warped vision of these films as putrid, depressing slogs makes “Death on the Nile” interminable. America’s “Knives Out,” whose sequel is coming to Netflix this year, is the better British mystery series these days.

If Branagh gets anywhere near my Miss Marple and Page Six reports he has been discovered unconscious on set with his head in a bowl of soup, consider me the prime suspect.