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Old September 23rd, 2023 #1
steven clark
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Posts: 2,277
Default A Haunting in Venice

A Haunting in Venice is the new Kevin Branagh film, where he plays Hercule Poirot, the famous Agatha Christie detective. The story, originally set in England in 1969, has been revamped to 1949 Venice, where a cynical Poirot wishes to retire from life, partly from wartime disillusion, but also from a spiritual slump in general.
Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), a murder mystery writer who needs a boost to sagging sales, suggests he come with her to a seance to expose a Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh) as an imposter.

The story centers on a spooky, (naturally) cursed palace in Venice, and when the inevitable murder occurs, Hercule comes out of retirement, and Ariadne is his Watson, teaming up and closing the palace off during a nasty storm to find the murderer. It's reminiscent of Ten Little Indians.

It's not a bad movie in that it's a standard whodunit, with good acting, production, and enough polished touches to keep an audience. It's not great, but a good commercial movie.
It's especially interesting in that Branagh, who loves to cast blacks in his films, has not done that this time (although scenes with nuns and children seem to have more dark faces in either than I'd think was possible in postwar Venice). There is also no mention of Jews. Whew! But two characters, half-siblings, are gypsies (Romani they say in the P.C. script), and were in concentration camps and plan to escape to...Missouri, of all places.
There are a lot of creepy shots...rats coming out of a gargoyle' mouth, a cuckoo clock with a weird Adam and Eve, and it is pretty watchable.

Just to let you know, since everyone says there are no good films anymore. This is old-fashioned, and not a bad popcorn movie.
 
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