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A Haunting In Venice is the third – and most likely LAST – Poirot film with which Kenneth Branagh will be involved.
The first, Murder on the Orient Express, cost $55m to make and grossed just over $350m, while the second, Death on the Nile – which I haven’t seen, saw the budget increased to $90, but only recouped around $135m. I understand it was another lavish production, shooting in 70mm and with a 2.39:1 widescreen vista.
This time round, he’s had to scale it back to cameras filming in 1.85:1, and just treat the image to *look* like it’s a lavish production, with the budget similarly scaled back a bit, to $60m. Then again, according to IMDB, this one was shot with Ultra Panavision 70 anamorphic… although that isn’t always correct.
We open Venice (obviously), in 1962. Poirot – now sporting a smaller moustache – is reclusive, and retired, yet everyone still wants his help.
Sniffing around is author Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), who wants him to attend a seance conducted by Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh – Everything Everywhere All At Once) – where she’ll channel the dead, and spell things out on a typewriter through her body – and can he spare some time to figure out if she’s on the level? Either way, it’s not long before there’s a mysterious death, and since there’s a Halloween Kids party, and since Rowena Drake’s (Kelly Reilly – Flight) daughter died last year, there’s a lot of blah-blah about a “Children’s Vendetta”.
However, A Haunting In Venice is one of those films where things go bump in the night, it’s way too dark throughout the entire movie, the investigation scenes really drone on – as each person tells their story, and one character says “None of us are safe” – it’s “None of us IS safe”!
Even more dumb is the cinematic process where two characters are talking to each other, but one is shown facing to the right of the screen – and turned to the right, while the other person is facing to the left – and is turned to the left, so it’s like they’re looking in opposite directions. Stop it!
And when the reveal did come, it was completely ridiculous. This is basically a 45-minute drama stretched out by an extra hour. I hope there are no more of these.
A Haunting In Venice is in cinemas now, and isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD, but you can buy the Agatha Christie novel, Hallowe’en Party, on which this film is based.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 103 minutes
Release date: September 15th 2023
Studio: 20th Century Studios
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (Ultra Panavision 70 – anamorphic)
Cinema: Odeon Trafford Centre
Rating: 2/10
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Producers: Kenneth Branagh, Judy Hofflund, Simon Kinberg, Ridley Scott
Screenplay: Michael Green
Novel: Agatha Christie (Hallowe’en Party)
Music: Hildur Guðnadóttir
Cast:
Hercule Poirot: Kenneth Branagh
Ariadne Oliver: Tina Fey
Joyce Reynolds: Michelle Yeoh
Olga Seminoff: Camille Cottin
Rowena Drake: Kelly Reilly
Leopold Ferrier: Jude Hill
Dr. Leslie Ferrier: Jamie Dornan
Alicia Drake: Rowan Robinson
Puppet Show MC: David Menkin
Child (Crying Girl): Clara Duczmal
Child (Cookie Gobbler): Yaw Nimako-Asamoah
Vitale Portfoglio: Riccardo Scamarcio
Vincenzo Di Stefano: Fernando Piloni
Alessandro Longo: Amir El-Masry
Grocer: Lorenzo Acquaviva
Baker: Dylan Corbett-Bader
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.