A Haunting In Venice (2023) - Movie Review

After the release limbo and subsequent inundation of cast controversies that wound up plaguing Death On The Nile, it is somewhat relieving that Kenneth Branagh’s latest dive into the works of Agatha Christie hasn’t run into any such unpleasantness just on the surface. And yet, right from its horror-tinged trailer, I admit to being sceptical about how much I would like this one. Honestly, my first impression was that this was going to be yet another attempt to cross-promote with the Conjuring supernatural aesthetic, which has been steadily shrinking in my favour over the course of 2023. But hey, this wouldn’t exactly be the first time I went into a film with weird and arguably unfair expectations, much as I try to avoid such things. And it’s ultimately a moot point anyway since, again like Death On The Nile, I quite enjoyed this.

Death On The Nile (2022) - Movie Review

With how a lot of mainstream films have been collecting dust while the pandemic kept mucking up the release schedule over the last couple years, this film arguably has gone through the worst aging of any film caught in that shuffle. Between when filming wrapped up in December of 2019, and its official release in February of 2022, at least four of the actors in this ensemble film have become embroiled in controversies. Actual Cannibal Armie Hammer, Letitia Wright’s ‘vaccine scepticism’, Russell Brand’s descent down the conspiracy YouTube rabbit hole, even Gal Gadot’s nauseating cover of Imagine (which, in her defense, she has since admitted to being… out of touch, to put it mildly); this is the kind of PR clusterfuck that could end up burying a film in release limbo indefinitely, COVID or no COVID.

Not that I'm holding any of that against the film myself. It’s rather unfair to hold Kenneth Branagh or indeed any of the other cast members responsible for actions that not only weren’t even of their own doing, but took place quite a while after the work itself was finished. Don’t get me wrong, it’s more than a little hilarious thinking about this four-car pile-up in hindsight, but… I have no other way to say it: This is a situation where separation of art from the artist absolutely applies. Hell, this isn’t even a new phenomenon for this specific series, given how controversial the casting of Johnny Depp was in Murder On The Orient Express. And that’s also taken on new life considering new information regarding his and Amber Heard’s… disastrous relationship, and how the film itself framed the death of his character in an ultimately positive light, as part of the story’s larger examination of the concept of justice.

I’m bringing all this up because, this early into 2022, it’s the kind of production snafu that threatens to overtake the film itself in terms of sheer interest, more so than possibly any film to come in the next several months. But honestly, as someone who went into this thinking that it would pale in comparison to Branagh’s Belfast, and who wasn’t that into Orient Express to begin with, I walked away from this very surprised by the results. Like, I think I liked this more than Orient or Belfast.

Belfast (2022) - Movie Review

After how well our last look at the work of Kenneth Branagh turned out with All Is True, and considering how self-reflective that film was, I was quite looking forward to this new feature. Where All Is True showed Branagh contemplating his future and his place as an older thespian that was becoming more known for gun-for-hire work than his more theatrical fare, Belfast is primarily about his past. It’s a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story about young Buddy (Jude Hill) growing up in the midst of The Troubles, although it’s not as overtly dramatic as that may make it sound.

Tenet (2020) - Movie Review

After diverting from his usual illusionist ways in 2017 with Dunkirk, writer/director Christopher Nolan seems to be back on his cerebral shit. In fact, he seems to have gone right back to Inception, as his latest is another example of high-concept complexity wrapped up in the kind of mainstream bombast that has allowed Nolan a foot in both houses for so much of his career. While I’d argue, both for subjective and objective reasons, this doesn’t quite reach the same dizzying heights as Inception, I’d also argue that this film has more than enough of its own finesse to succeed.

All Is True (2019) - Movie Review

After spending most of this decade adding his approach to period fidelity to a wide range of other literary adaptations, from the Arthurian tinges of Thor to the whodunit conservatism of Murder On The OrientExpress, filmmaker and thespian Kenneth Branagh has returned to his Shakespearean roots to direct and lead a production all about the man himself. Specifically, a story covering the last three years of the Bard’s life, from the destruction of the Globe Theatre to his untimely death.

Murder On The Orient Express (2017) - Movie Review

Kenneth Branagh, when all is said and done, is a filmmaker who operates best in the realm of adaptation. Starting out by bringing some of Shakespeare’s greatest stories to the big screen in roaring fashion, right down to what has become the definitive version of Hamlet (all four hours of it), he has since gone on to give the same treatment to operas, spy thriller novels, superheroes, even Disney princesses. The respective qualities of each of those examples definitely differs, but I would argue that the man always manages to leave an impression on whatever genre he decides to take on. Today marks yet another new avenue for the man, this time delving into a murder mystery adapted from legendary writer Agatha Christie. Do we see the little grey cells go off in Branagh’s head once again, or are they sitting this one out?

Dunkirk (2017) - Movie Review

Christopher Nolan is one of those directors who seems to ferociously divide audiences, usually in reference to the director’s more staunch defenders. He has made some truly incredible films, like the cerebral heist flick Inception and the ground-breaking superhero film The Dark Knight, both of which I’d count among my favourite films ever… but the guy’s reputation has been stuck in a bit of a mire for a while now.

 

Interstellar wasn’t that well received overall, and while The Dark Knight Rises still holds up as a good Batman film, it and combined with his involvement in Man Of Steel resulted in the current state of the DC Extended Universe, one that was definitely painted with Nolan’s dark brushstrokes from his Batman work. Naturally, as is the case with pretty much all of his films, the marketing for his latest has been rather inescapable. Knowing my own hesitance to full-force advertising of films and my want for him to pull through with a film that I don’t have to defend quite so hard as something like Rises, this is already looking like an interesting situation for a film’s release.

 

But that’s all background noise; what’s the actual movie like?

Cinderella (2015) - Movie Review

Choosing to remake one of the classic Disney Princess films was a risky decision, bordering on suicidal considering how poorly the last attempt at this was taken. Sure, I may not have disliked Maleficent as much as other people, in fact I honestly think it was pretty decent, but in terms of the bottom line that is the almighty dollar, this is kind of lopsided. It is also completely understandable: Cinderella is one of the most recognisable fairy tales of all time, to the point where Cinderella as a term is fully ingrained in the human lexicon, and releasing a new version of the tale is always going to draw attention. But just because they are able to convince a lot of people to see their movie doesn’t necessarily mean that they will be fulfilled upon leaving the cinema. So, time to see what a person in the completely wrong demographic for this film has to say about it to help you make your mind about it, because that makes all kinds of sense.