Probably the best Branagh Poirot movie so far, mostly by virtue of not having the ugly, plastic sheen of the previous 2 movies. This one captures the old school filmmaking style Branagh is going for pretty authentically, and the visuals are easily the best thing about this movie. With that being said, the final result is still nothing to write home about. While the characters and acting are generally ok, the dialogue and mystery are once again unexciting and lack a distinct artistic flair. Add to that a sluggish pace and poorly executed touches of horror (really unnecessary if you’re not willing to lean into that influence in a creative way), and you have a movie that is overall pretty forgettable and dull. 4.5/10

>*"Scary stories make life less scary."* Haven't watched *Murder on the Orient Express* yet and thought *Death on the Nile* was boring but I really enjoyed ***A Haunting in Venice***. It's very slow but kept me glued to the screen the whole time. Good story and mystery but the characters are what drives this, they're interesting. The interview format got a bit repetitive at some point but it works for the most part and it elevates Hercule Poirot as a character every time. I didn't predict the culprit but the clues were definitely there! A criticism; I'll be vague but the mystery solver felt a bit overpowered and the problem solving unearned. The supernatural and horror twist is what really elevated the experience for me, we even got a few jumpscares and it's spooky. The palazzo set is perfection and the dark, rainy, stormy atmosphere is always a great choice. The imagery is absolutely stunning, amazing lighting, stylish camerawork and great cast. Worth watching in a theater but at the same time I would save this for the Halloween season—i'd consider it a Halloween movie. I had no expectations going in but overall this was a good murder mystery!

Worth watching overall, especially for fans of whodunits, despite the usual butchering of Poirot by Branagh who can’t even do a decent French accent. Fey is also terrible reciting her lines like a 5th grader rather than speaking them in a natural way. The rest of the actors do well. The sets are good and quite lovely for the most part except for being overdone at times. The plot is thick and unravels nicely which accounts for the decent grade. I’m curious to see how much they deviated from Christie’s plot on which this is supposedly loosely based. If Branagh had not so mercilessly slaughtered Orient Express and Nile I would have probably tolerated and liked this one better…

I don't know if it's nostalgia or something else, but for me, no one else embodies Poirot like David Suchet. Kenneth Branagh just doesn't fit the role.

I don't know why I keep bothering with these. Cheesy dialogue and flat performances, more cringy fake accents though Branagh's still the worst—almost sounding Turkish at times while he mispronounces actual French words as well as his character's name. And what is up with the boy who acts like a middle-aged woman? That's not a thing. Same writing formula of shoehorning a trail of breadcrumbs to be called back in the final reveal, but they're so dull you don't even care, and the entire end monologue might as well be replaced by a "yeah that's the killer" for how magical and confirmation-bias-ridden the path to deduction is. The scenery and occasionally spooky atmosphere were cool though and kept me in it, but it was a challenge.