Someone stop Kenneth Branagh: A Haunting in Venice reviewed

A Haunting in Venice is Kenneth Branagh’s third Poirot film (after Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile) and as each one is worse than the last you could say he’s on a losing streak. Why someone with Branagh’s CV would persist, I don’t know. Why someone who has his dignity at heart hasn’t yet rugby tackled him to the ground while shouting ‘STOP!’, I also don’t know. That is the biggest mystery here.

The film is directed by Branagh, who yet again casts himself as Poirot even if we all know what Poirot looks like and that’s David Suchet. The first problem is that Hallowe’en Party, the Agatha Christie novel on which this is based, is set in an English village and goes nowhere. At the first mention of ‘Venice’ someone should have rugby tackled Branagh while shouting ‘STOP!’. He has also added some characters, dropped others, and changed the plot.