Death on the Nile: Waterlogged

Death on the Nile (2022) • View trailer

Two stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for violence, bloody images and sexual candor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.11.22

Vanity, thy name is Kenneth Branagh.

 

Bad enough that he dishonors Agatha Christie by turning her shrewdly stoic, sharp-as-a-tack Hercule Poirot, he of the “little gray cells,” into a despondent, uncertain, weeping snowflake with no emotional control: somebody to be scorned, not admired.

 

Newlyweds Simon (Armie Hammer) and Linnet (Gal Gadot) happily tour an Egyptian
bazaar, little realizing that the stalker they've hoped to elude, isn't very far away...

Worse yet, Michael Green’s laughably overcooked and overwrought script makes absolutely hash of Christie’s celebrated 1937 novel, and his efforts at dialogue are remarkably unpersuasive.

At one point, having just acknowledged dropping a massive chunk of stone onto an unwary victim below, one suspect then wails “But I never would have killed her,” despite having just admitted attempting to do that very thing: a statement that goes unchallenged by Poirot and everybody else, which makes them look like fools.

 

That’s probably the worst howler in this egregiously stupid script, but it has plenty of company.

 

And as if all this isn’t enough, Branagh — who also directs — tolerates (encourages?) overacting to such a ludicrous degree, that he telegraphs the plot’s most surprising twist.

 

This may well be the worst big-screen Christie adaptation ever unleashed on an unsuspecting public … and I’m quite mindful of 1965’s dreadful Alphabet Murders — Tony Randall being an equally appalling Poirot — while making this claim.

 

Dame Agatha must be spinning in her grave.

 

This brings us to the issue of assigning early 21st century attitudes on characters who inhabit the 1930s: an “enhancement” that must be handled with care, lest the disconnect become distracting. There certainly isn’t anything wrong — as a positive example — with making two of these suspects lesbian lovers; even if Christie never specifically addressed such a relationship, they certainly existed.

 

But completely changing numerous supporting characters — in name and behavior — is both unnecessary and irritating. 

 

This film also opens with a nightclub display of Miley Cyrus-style “dirty dancing” that is impressively salacious by today’s standards, let alone those of nearly a century ago: a sequence that Branagh allows to go on, and on — and on — long past the point of … well … having made its point.

 

And that’s far from the only sequence that feels wholly out of place.

 

Clearly, since 2017’s similarly “modified” Murder on the Orient Express was such a box office success — grossing more than $350 million worldwide — Branagh’s reprisal of Poirot was inevitable.

 

But good grief … couldn’t all concerned have tried a little harder?

 

Sigh.

Minions: Banana-rama!

Minions (2015) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG, and needlessly, for cartoon action and brief rude humor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.10.15

Thrusting supporting players into their own starring vehicle rarely succeeds.

Rarely ... but not never. In five short years, the Twinkie-hued, overalled lab subordinates in Despicable Me have gone from screwball second bananas to a genuine world-wide phenomenon ... and they more than hold their own, in the absolutely delightful Minions.

Having won a coveted spot as Scarlet Overkill's new henchbeings, our Minion heroes —
from left, Stuart, Bob and Kevin — eagerly await their first dastardly mission. Sadly,
they've no idea how shallow their new employer's loyalty is destined to be.

But their success remains an anomaly.

Although a more frequent phenomenon on television — where we (briefly) suffered through, among many others, Beverly Hills Buntz (from Hill Street Blues) and Joey (Friends) — the big screen has seen its share of sidekick disasters.

The reason is obvious, although it seems to elude studio execs. A successful ensemble character dynamic is as fragile as a soufflé: Each element is essential, creating a whole that is, to everybody’s delight, greater than the sum of its talented parts. You simply can’t remove one of those pieces, toss it into an under-written spin-off, and expect good results.

Steve Carell’s Evan Baxter was hilarious, supporting Jim Carrey, Morgan Freeman, Jennifer Aniston and Nora Dunn in Bruce Almighty. On his own, in the follow-up Evan Almighty ... not so much. Dwayne Johnson’s Scorpion King may have set up the action in The Mummy Returns, but he couldn’t manage the heavy lifting in his own film, a year later.

Jennifer Garner’s Elektra was the best part of the otherwise awful Daredevil — notwithstanding Colin Farrell’s maniacal villain — but no amount of fancy swordplay could have helped her starring vehicle, two years later. And let’s just try to pretend that Halle Berry’s toothless turn as Catwoman never happened.

(This phenomenon is far from recent. Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne’s Charters and Caldicott, the cricket-loving supporting players in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1938 classic, The Lady Vanishes, wound up in their own feature three years later. Nobody remembers Crook’s Tour today ... which is probably just as well.)

Why, then, have the Minions broken the curse?

It always comes down to the same basic element: the script. In this case, Brian Lynch — who had a hand in 2011’s droll Puss in Boots (another rare spin-off success) — has delivered a story that’s both clever and witty, granting these well-intentioned but disaster-prone subordinates both an origin story and their first chaotic adventure within the ranks of would-be super-villains.

Lynch doesn’t miss a trick. The results are cute, hilarious and wisely episodic: mini-escapades shrewdly stitched together in a manner that feels like a long single storyline. Co-directors Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda keep things moving at a lively clip, with editor Claire Dodgson also ensuring that this 91-minute film doesn’t overstay its welcome.