A Haunting in Venice Review

A Haunting In Venice is director / producer / lead actor Kenneth Branagh's third Poirot film based on the inimitable Belgian detective created by Agatha Christie, after Murder On The Orient Express and Death On The Nile.

Exhausted from two wars and a profession where death is a frequent acquaintance, Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) has since retired to Venice in Italy, where the former detective brushes aside people wanting an audience, purchases exactly weighed eggs, and tends to his garden. He will take no more cases, and his famous little grey cells are to no longer be piqued, thank you very much. Poirot will, however, still go out of his way to refute the existence of the supernatural.

Dragged by his scheming, plotting author friend Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey) who wishes to get back on the bestseller list after writing three disappointing mystery novels, Poirot ends up at a Halloween party in a haunted Venetian palazzo owned by the opera singer Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly). All of the action takes place in this crumbling palazzo (though we would have loved to see more of the surroundings), as an assortment of characters comes together to participate in a séance for Alice Drake, Rowena's daughter. There's the caretaker Olga Seminoff (Camille Cottin), the nervous Dr Leslie Ferrier (Jamie Dornan) and his son Leopold (Jude Hill), Alice's ex-fiancé Maxime Gerard (Kyle Allen), and detective Vitale Portfoglio (Riccardo Scamarcio) who first responded to Alice's death - all set to witness the supernatural through the talents of psychic medium Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh) and her assistant Desdemona (Emma Laird). Unfortunately, for all the guests involved, the real horror show is about to begin.

A Haunting In Venice is an experiment in incorporating horror to the murder mystery genre (with a dash of humour), and while it is a very solid effort at that, it ends up being the weak point of the movie. Poirot detective stories create a taut atmosphere where the reader keeps wondering when the inevitable body comes tumbling out of the dark, and in our humble opinion there isn't any need for further tension to keep the audience guessing. Jumpscares are but cheap thrills that take away from the sombre atmosphere the movie otherwise painstakingly tries to cultivate. Ironically, both the uncanny, skewed-angle visuals by cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos, and the eerie, horror-inspired score by Hildur Guðnadóttir get the audience to believe in the involvement of the supernatural way better than any of the jumpscares employed.

There is a point in the film where the notoriously rational mind of Hercule Poirot believes that he is hearing voices from the dead, even going as far as to consider being guided by a dead woman. Similar to the previous Poirot movie where we mentioned that we enjoyed the human side of the ironclad Poirot persona, the momentary hesitation of the great detective is where A Haunting In Venice peaks. For the briefest of windows, we get a vulnerable man jaded by death due to his participation in wars, losing the love of his life, and his constant flirtations with murder due to his chosen profession - until Ariadne Oliver's diabolic schemes to stay relevant gets it all undone. The hold it has over you passes as briefly as it comes, and the famous grey cells kick back into control to explain to us mere mortals how all the dominos fall. Despite all the promise, it ends up being the same old whodunit.

Kennegh Branagh enjoys himself as always, creating and directing a dream role for himself with all of the glee you would expect. Michelle Yeoh saunters into the limelight just as her character saunters into the palazzo in the film, grabbing eyeballs in every frame she is in. Tiny Fey hams it up as Ariadne Oliver, the loud American stereotype feeling more and more timesome as time progresses. The rest of the cast's performances are adequate enough, with Kelly Reilly's grieving mother and Jude Hill's precocious child act being the two standouts.

Oftentimes, building up expectations of delivering something different and then delivering nothing is significantly more disappointing than if we as an audience got the expected fare. That being said, experimentation is the key to create new and fresh experiences in cinema, and it is most unfortunate that a movie ends up being all the worse for it.

For all our complaints regarding it being the same old whodunit, it is exactly what Hercule Poirot said he uncovers. Go in expecting nothing but a whodunit, and you'll have fun getting to know whodunit. Regardless of the experimentation with genres - it is ultimately nothing more, nothing less.