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Post by Deleted on Apr 3, 2022 15:12:30 GMT
I'm a massive Agatha Christie and Poirot fan but I can't get on with the Branagh remakes. Death on the Nile was a little better than Orient Express, but in both movies none of the changes add anything. And in Niles case I actually think it makes the murderer more obvious from very early on. The CGI also varied from realistic to computer game.
The actress from Sex Education as Jacqui was a standout though, she really shone.
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Post by vdcni on Apr 3, 2022 20:15:58 GMT
I'll watch it now its on Disney+ but really without Angela Lansbury what is the point!
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Post by crabtree on Apr 3, 2022 21:14:43 GMT
well this answers my question from a while ago.
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Post by lynette on Apr 5, 2022 22:41:29 GMT
Better than I expected but I still prefer the other version…
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Post by Dawnstar on Apr 6, 2022 16:12:58 GMT
well this answers my question from a while ago. So pretty much the whole thing is CGI scenery-wise? I don't much point in watching then. You might as well just watch an animated film if they're equally fake!
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Post by steve10086 on Apr 6, 2022 18:14:08 GMT
well this answers my question from a while ago. So pretty much the whole thing is CGI scenery-wise? I don't much point in watching then. You might as well just watch an animated film if they're equally fake! I stopped watching anything with Superman in it when I discovered he doesn’t actually fly, and it’s all done with special effects! Can’t be doing with all this movie fakery!!
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Post by Jan on Apr 6, 2022 19:13:49 GMT
well this answers my question from a while ago. So pretty much the whole thing is CGI scenery-wise? I don't much point in watching then. You might as well just watch an animated film if they're equally fake! On the other hand I’d have preferred a CGI actor to the quite breathtakingly miscast Russell Brand. He has his place but this wasn’t it.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 6, 2022 19:24:59 GMT
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Post by Dawnstar on Apr 6, 2022 21:14:17 GMT
So pretty much the whole thing is CGI scenery-wise? I don't much point in watching then. You might as well just watch an animated film if they're equally fake! I stopped watching anything with Superman in it when I discovered he doesn’t actually fly, and it’s all done with special effects! Can’t be doing with all this movie fakery!! I feel the difference is that since humans can't fly without mechanical assistance the only way to show it on screen is to fake it in some way. Whereas it's perfectly possible to sail a boat on a real river so faking it is a lot less justified in my opinion.
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Post by steve10086 on Apr 6, 2022 21:56:57 GMT
I stopped watching anything with Superman in it when I discovered he doesn’t actually fly, and it’s all done with special effects! Can’t be doing with all this movie fakery!! I feel the difference is that since humans can't fly without mechanical assistance the only way to show it on screen is to fake it in some way. Whereas it's perfectly possible to sail a boat on a real river so faking it is a lot less justified in my opinion. Every scene in a car where the moving background is added, or every huge crowd scene where CGI people are added, would be perfectly possible without “faking it”. But these are movies, they are inherently “fake”, they aren’t documentaries. I really don’t see the issue.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 7, 2022 6:08:48 GMT
There's no issue when it's done well, but death in the nile often looked like cgi from over 20 years ago.
And as the 70s version showed, you can't beat filming on location for authenticity.
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Post by jojo on Apr 7, 2022 7:57:49 GMT
The CGI wasn't great, but the boat was. A half and half approach would have been better.
Overall it was an enjoyable enough watch, but share the sentiment that I could have done without Branagh padding his part. I'd rather the time was used to get to know some of the suspects a bit better.
My main criticism was that I just don't see Arnie Hammer's character as attractive or interesting enough to be the subject of obsession of not one, but two very attractive and seemingly bright women.
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Post by d'James on Apr 8, 2022 0:46:09 GMT
Just watched this.
The camerawork/direction was the worst thing for me: one by one forming a diagonal line so the camera can see you; cameras going in circles; from one window to another and back again?! I felt a bit queasy at times.
This looked like the narrowest boat in history yet the communal areas were plenty wide.
It was a strange mix of accents. I thought Jennifer Saunders’s was one of the best.
Kenneth Branagh does not a good Poirot make - well, he certainly doesn’t have the charisma of Ustinov, Suchet or Finney.
Emma Mackey was definitely a standout.
Somehow, with a cast of characters, the director has elicited a performance of nobodies.
A Tragedy of Accents. Two Stars.
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Post by lynette on Apr 8, 2022 12:50:19 GMT
Have to agree with some of the above. One thing that puzzles me: why does the spurned lover follow them around etc. surely if they had planned to bump off the heiress then they could have waited til they had settled into their country estate and she could have choked on a bone, fell off a cliff, had accident rising, been cut with a kitchen appliance etc etc. I’m just not into the plot. And the Suchet makes it much clearer how it was done. The paint thing doesn’t wash ( see what I did there?) In the Suchet we have nail polish, referred to in this one, pointlessly.
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Post by Jon on Apr 8, 2022 13:13:45 GMT
Filming on water is both tricky and expensive so I can see why they opted to use CGI.
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Post by Jan on Apr 8, 2022 14:49:41 GMT
The CGI bit I liked was the CGI-enhanced Young Branagh at the start, I remember that's what he actually looked like at that age. However that whole WW-I scene was absolutely self-indulgent and entirely pointless in the context of the film.
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Post by steve10086 on Apr 8, 2022 17:37:43 GMT
Have to agree with some of the above. One thing that puzzles me: why does the spurned lover follow them around etc. surely if they had planned to bump off the heiress then they could have waited til they had settled into their country estate and she could have choked on a bone, fell off a cliff, had accident rising, been cut with a kitchen appliance etc etc. I’m just not into the plot. And the Suchet makes it much clearer how it was done. The paint thing doesn’t wash ( see what I did there?) In the Suchet we have nail polish, referred to in this one, pointlessly. If it wasn’t for Poirot’s skill they would have staged a murder for which they both had water tight alibis. And choking on a bone doesn’t make a great film!
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Post by peggs on Apr 8, 2022 17:46:33 GMT
The CGI bit I liked was the CGI-enhanced Young Branagh at the start, I remember that's what he actually looked like at that age. However that whole WW-I scene was absolutely self-indulgent and entirely pointless in the context of the film. A WW1 scene?! Don't remember that from the book. Is this more random invented things from the past to explain why Poirot acts like he does now?
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Post by confessor on Apr 9, 2022 9:00:26 GMT
The CGI bit I liked was the CGI-enhanced Young Branagh at the start, I remember that's what he actually looked like at that age. However that whole WW-I scene was absolutely self-indulgent and entirely pointless in the context of the film. A WW1 scene?! Don't remember that from the book. Is this more random invented things from the past to explain why Poirot acts like he does now? Yes! A completely pointless addition before the actual story starts, which basically serves as a moustache origin story, and makes zero sense unless they're saying that it's a false moustache. The more I think about this film, the more I hate it.
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Post by Jan on Apr 9, 2022 9:15:28 GMT
A WW1 scene?! Don't remember that from the book. Is this more random invented things from the past to explain why Poirot acts like he does now? Yes! A completely pointless addition before the actual story starts, which basically serves as a moustache origin story, and makes zero sense unless they're saying that it's a false moustache. The more I think about this film, the more I hate it. Like that Sarah Phelps BBC adaptation where they inserted scenes revealing that Poirot had been a priest in Belgium.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2022 9:28:06 GMT
It's like branagh wants to make poirot an action man. Like the ridiculous chase on the bridge in the first movie.
The tv series is about as close to Christies vision as you will likely get.
I don't know why writers constantly think they can better Christie. The odd tweak or embellishment for tv or film is one thing, but changing plots or characters just seems pointless and never seems to be an improvement. She was a genius of the genre.
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Post by danb on Apr 9, 2022 11:31:58 GMT
She certainly was; the Ustinov film was close to the book and all the better for it.
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Post by jojo on Apr 9, 2022 11:46:42 GMT
I don't mind some changes, especially if it's to remove some of the archaic (racist) language and the usual sorts of changes that make sense for a screen adaptation of a book. Adding a bit of Poirot back story is less of an issue when it's a series, but in a film that's already got a lot of characters and is on the long side, then that time would have been better spent learning more of the back story to the suspects.
There was also a contrast in the style of filming. Poirot's pre-current-plot back-story was given a lot of time to say not very much, but the introduction to most of the main characters was written very slickly, with tight editing to take up as little time as possible.
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Post by peggs on Apr 9, 2022 17:40:14 GMT
'A moustache origin story', surely one of the oddest phrases ever!
I'm notoriously bad at watching books adapted into tv/film, I have somewhat mellowed with age and can appreciate change/additions if they still feel in keeping with the book/characters but fume when extra stuff gets added that minimises what actually was in the book in the first place. Haven't seen the film but i'm struggling to imagine any relevance for a moustache adding to it?
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Post by Jan on Apr 9, 2022 20:53:47 GMT
'A moustache origin story', surely one of the oddest phrases ever! I'm notoriously bad at watching books adapted into tv/film, I have somewhat mellowed with age and can appreciate change/additions if they still feel in keeping with the book/characters but fume when extra stuff gets added that minimises what actually was in the book in the first place. Haven't seen the film but i'm struggling to imagine any relevance for a moustache adding to it? Yeah, it’s sort of woven into the plot about Poirot’s love interest. Fuming even more ?
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Post by peggs on Apr 9, 2022 21:10:11 GMT
'A moustache origin story', surely one of the oddest phrases ever! I'm notoriously bad at watching books adapted into tv/film, I have somewhat mellowed with age and can appreciate change/additions if they still feel in keeping with the book/characters but fume when extra stuff gets added that minimises what actually was in the book in the first place. Haven't seen the film but i'm struggling to imagine any relevance for a moustache adding to it? Yeah, it’s sort of woven into the plot about Poirot’s love interest. Fuming even more ? Right, well I have been warned and have no excuses if I ever chose to watch this film do I.
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Post by danb on Apr 10, 2022 7:25:28 GMT
To be fair the moustache element is at least an interesting ‘reason’ for doing it. But its ten minutes that needn’t be there.
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Post by Jan on Apr 10, 2022 9:52:18 GMT
To be fair the moustache element is at least an interesting ‘reason’ for doing it. But its ten minutes that needn’t be there. Agree on timing, the film needed at least 30 minutes cut and those 10 minutes were obvious candidates. The main issue I have with the WW-I stuff is it doesn't explain anything at all about the main plot, it's just added on at the beginning so it can explain another entirely fabricated 5 minutes at the end. Michael Billington in his regular whines about Trevor Nunn always used to accuse him of editorialising Shakespeare's text, that is adding in extra bits and pieces of his own devising to explain things in the text. I actually like that a lot. One example was in his Timon of Athens with (coincidentally) Suchet. There's a bit in the text at the end where Timon entirely unexpectedly and randomly finds some buried treasure. In Nunn's production he started with a scene of a full-on bank raid where the the thieves buried their haul afterwards thus providing a reason for it to be there later, plus it told you something about the state of Athens. What Branagh has done in this film is the bank raid but with no buried treasure afterwards.
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Post by danb on Apr 10, 2022 12:17:12 GMT
At least Shakespeare can be impenetrable to some, so a bit of additional help is welcome. It just felt self indulgent from Branagh.
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Post by Jan on Apr 10, 2022 19:25:16 GMT
At least Shakespeare can be impenetrable to sum, so a bit of additional help is welcome. It just felt self indulgent from Branagh. Nunn’s best intervention was in Othello. That handkerchief, if it was so important how come Desdemona forgot it ? Nunn had a bit of business to explain that which was one of the greatest theatrical moments I’ve ever seen, genuinely breathtaking.
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