Unlike his other two Christie adaptations featuring this character, this film does not have a previous, star-studded, version with which to compare. That's a good thing because this is certainly not one of the author's stronger stories. "Poirot" (Sir Kenneth Branagh) has retired to a sort of self-imposed exile in Venice where he sees nobody but the pastry chef. The arrival of fellow writer "Ariadne" (Tina Fey) teases what's left of his little grey cells and takes them to an old palazzo where there is to be a seance to try and ascertain what caused the strange death of the young "Alicia". He quickly discovers that those assembled consist a group of folks who all have baggage - individually, or with others from the party and of course, in the best "Cleudo" style, one of them is duly murdered in a nigh-on impossible fashion. The last ten minutes of this is quite quirky and as usual with this writer we are presented with a fairly left-field solution, but I found the bulk of the remainder of the mystery to be presented in a stylish and classy-looking, but ponderous and lethargic fashion. It's way too wordy and the cast don't really gel together particularly well as the sense of peril really doesn't accumulate very much at all. It's nicely scored and shows off the beauty and the vulnerability of Venice but as a whodunnit, I felt it just lacked a little je ne sais quoi! Sir Kenneth is definitely trying to create a persona for his detective, and I am warming to that slightly (though he's no Peter Ustinov) but I found the writing rather too dry and I didn't really manage to get into this. Maybe one to watch a few times?

While Kenneth Branagh is not our favourite Poirot, we like seeing Agatha Christie tales on the big screen. (We want to encourage more murder mysteries to be made.) Much improved over Death on the Nile, this one gives us interesting establishing shots of the titular Venice before we get to the haunted Pallazo where the majority of the film takes place. Michelle Yeoh was the highlight of the familiar faces populating this one. Tina Fey was an odd choice as the comic relief in a period film. We did both close our eyes sometime in the middle though.