A Haunting in Venice was directed by Kenneth Branagh and continues the adaptations of Agatha Christie's beloved mystery stories involving Hercule Poirot. In this adaptation of Christie's 1969 "Hallowe'en Party", we see Poirot, retired, living in Venice in 1947. He is encouraged by a friend (Tina Fey) to attend a seance at the palazzo of opera singer Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly) and to help expose the medium, Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh) as a fraud. Suddenly, one of the guests dies, and it is up to Poirot to solve the case once again. After "Murder on the Orient Express", and "Death on the Nile", which had huge supporting cast and beautiful locations, I was interested in the next installment of the Poirot saga. I enjoyed the whodunit aspects of the previous film. When looking at the poster and seeing trailers for the film, the film promised scares, ominous spirits galore. We didn't get that in this film. What we got instead was a slow, predictable mess of a whodunit that left me unsatisfied.
One thing I did enjoy was the visuals. The cinematography by Haris Zambarloukos was amazing to look at. I loved the different camera angles and editing techniques in the film. Venice is indeed a beautiful sight to see. The costume design by Sammy Sheldon was also pretty good. The masks and costumes fit the 1940s'. Unfortunately, the beginning and the end are all we get to see of Venice outdoors, as majority of the film takes place at the palazzo.
As I mentioned above, the film suffers from a slow pace. At a 103-minute runtime, the film should've done a better job at moving forward the plot. The beginning seemed interesting, up until the death of the guest. Then the film goes at a snail's pace trying to figure out who the killer was. It doesn't help that Poirot's mustache is distracting to look at. Also, I couldn't understand half of what he was saying because of his thick accent. Most of the supporting cast could have been listed as cameo appearances, as half of them aren't nearly on screen as I'd like. Most of the film is focused on Poirot. With a great supporting ensemble, you would think the film would ace the acting. But some acting choices were flat, particularly Branagh as Poirot.
If you enjoyed the previous entries in the Poirot remakes entries, I would recommend seeing the film at least once. But don't expect anything groundbreaking. For a murder mystery, it falls short of expectations.
5.5/10
