A Haunting in Venice: Movie Review

Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Michelle Yeoh, Kelly Reilly, Jamie Dornan, Tina Fey

Director: Kenneth Branagh

A distinctly more maudlin approach to Poirot A Haunting in Venice may be, but at times this would-be frightfest is dreadfully moribund in its execution, stifled as it is in its spooky atmospherics.

This latest finds Branagh's Poirot jaded and disengaged with life. Reclining atop a Venetian building, the great detective languishes, his brain withering from disinterest in cases around him.

When Tina Fey's writer Ariadne Oliver (feeling very much like her Only Murders in the Building character Cinda Canning) comes waltzing back into Poirot's life and demanding he attend a seance on All Hallow's Eve, Poirot finds himself closer to death in more ways than one.

There's much to be said for Branagh's take on Poirot, but in truth this latest outing feels like a list of cheaply executed scares that puncture the pedestrian proceedings, but provide little paranormal panache.

While Branagh's eye for the camera work this time focuses more on the disorienting details and the gloominess of the palazzo building he finds himself in, there's a little too much reliance on either the soundscape or the atmospherics to keep audiences engaged.

Outside of Michelle Yeoh's lively take on a medium, most of the cast feel constrained and muted as they tackle murder within the walls - even Poirot's usual wordplay is cut back as the character grapples with the possibility of death, the effect of trauma and the very real chance he's wrong about what's going on.

Tonally A Haunting in Venice seems right to release in the run up to the Hallowe'en celebrations and is far as it can be from the genuine sparkle that inhabited the earlier Poirot films.

Yet it never quite shakes off its solemnity to provide something stunning - it may work as a cautionary tale about predilections with legacy and the afterlife, but too much of A Haunting in Venice relies on cheap atmospherics to make its point, rather than the stellar wordplay and use of its incredible cast.