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Death on the Nile Movierulz: Kenneth Branagh’s second take on the Agatha Christie mysteries after “Murder on the Orient Express” garnered very mixed reviews in English-speaking countries, though mostly leaning toward rejection. The presence of Armie Hammer in the cast was also questioned.

A few days after his Oscar nomination for both Best Director and Best Picture for Belfast was announced, Kenneth Branagh finally released Death on the Nile, his second bet on the classic police universe, the mystery inside a closed room, by Agatha Christie, delayed almost six years by the pandemic. The first, Murder on the Orient Express 2017 was a resounding box office success: USD 353 million in theaters, much more than its cost of USD 55 million.

It is difficult to think that something like this could happen with this new film, judging by the tones —discordant, although more inclined to the negative— that the film received, starring Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Emma Mackey, and Branagh himself as Hercule Poirot.

“Branagh’s spirited performance as Poirot and a cast of big names isn’t enough to keep this stale, two-dimensional mystery story afloat,” he was condemned by The Guardian, who considered that no matter how much the plot progresses over corpses, “there is no neither a crescendo nor a climax.”

“Branagh has delivered a polished follow-up to his previous foray at Christie’s, which won’t win awards but seems to provide a satisfying close to bringing this chapter together,” was CNN‘s subdued praise.

The New York Times found something of a silver lining at the end: “More often than not, Branagh’s Poirot lacks personality, and the film’s fiery epilogue exudes more humor than all the rest put together.”

Sites that use numbers to express the quality of work placed it above the median threshold: Rotten Tomatoes gave it 67%, IMBd 6.6 points out of 10, Common Sense Media 3 points out of 5, and Metacritic 52 percent.

But perhaps the most representative comment of the general spirit of criticism has been that of Variety, which pointed out that it is not enough to throw a corpse imagined by an author of mysteries in the center of a group of stars: “There is a film, which does not is based on Agatha Christie but captures her spirit so well that it is Christie’s best film in half a century: Knives Out. Death on the Nile, while decent, fails to achieve that old-school mix of wit, thrill, and delight.”

That is for the artistic value. Because many of the reviews were largely devoted to Hammer’s presence in the cast.

Hammer plays Simon Doyle, Jacqueline’s (Mackey) fiancé, who one night in a London nightclub meets his girlfriend’s best friend, heiress Linnet Ridgeway (Gadot), with whom he dances. The next time the three of them appear together will be on the cruise ship, where Linnet and Simon spend their honeymoon; Jacqueline follows in their footsteps.

Thus, instead of a train in frozen lands as in Murder on the Orient Express, the Belgian detective will investigate a crime while he sails on the river and explores the archaeological treasures of Egypt. Because, although it takes time —another element that the critics pointed out—, the corpse arrives, and as always in Christie’s stories, the motley people present are all suspicious.

Among the unanimous praise, the film received is its photography, which accentuates the beauty of the places and some aspects of the characters, and compensates for the development of the story with great visual pleasure. Also, Annette Benning, who plays an artist, mother of Bouc (Tom Bateman), Poirot’s collaborator in the 2017 film, was unqualifiedly celebrated: her performance was “criminally wasted”, according to the Times.

Finally, the opening scene of the film, a kind of black and white prologue, which shows Poirot in the trenches of the First World War, was also received positively by critics. That look into the past explains Poirot’s bushy mustache but above all something about his personality.

The denouement surprises anyone who hasn’t read the 1937 novel or seen the 1978 film, directed by John Guillermin and starring a cast that included Peter Ustinov, Mia Farrow, Jane Birkin, Bette Davis, Maggie Smith, and David Niven. Branagh’s picks for the rest of the characters were Russell Brand, Rose Leslie, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Letitia Wright, and Ali Fazal.

Despite differing opinions from early reviews, box office estimates for Death on the Nile’s opening weekend are, according to Deadline, between $11 million and $17 million from 3,200 theaters in the United States, a good start for production of USD 90 million.