Made a sort of mystery double header. Matched my 3rd Glass Onion viewing with my first complete watch of the third version of Death on the Nile I have seen. Rian Johnson is much better at this sort of thing then Branagh. I did not mind some of the changes to the characters, and some were a definite improvement, but my whole biggest problem with the Branagh Poirot movies can be summed up by this: he reunited Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders and gave them absolutely nothing funny to do. His Poirot is dull and not as fun as a Christie should be. He needs to lean into the absurdity of it all, and he just does not. Also, as someone else has pointed out. Death on the Nile takes over an hour to Death. The story has a lot of necessary set up, but 10 minutes on an origin story for Poirot s mustache is not by any definition necessary.
I saw his next is going to be a version of Halloween Party set in Venice. Since that one has Ariadne Oliver in it, easily the greatest of Poirot assistants (and Agatha Christie doing a mocking self portrait) the botching of the potentially absolutely fabulous French and Saunders pairing makes me despair for that character. Even if she is played (according to rumor) by Tina Fey. Making her American is, well, very odd as is setting a closed circle mystery in Venice, but making her unfunny would be inexcusable. She does not have to be Zoe Wanamaker funny, just not dull.