Murder mysteries rose to fame in the 1920’s with writers, such as the famous Agatha Christie, growing in popularity. Even after 100 years, Christie’s books are still popular with many of them being made into movies over the last few years including “Crooked House” (2017), “Murder on the Orient Express” (2017) and just recently “Death on the Nile” (2022). “Death on the Nile” received a 64% from RottenTomatoes and 6.6/10 from IMDb.

The movie is set in 1937, which can be clearly seen by the music, costumes and type of ship used. The music, performed by Salome Otterborne (Sophie Okonedo), takes on the bluesy jazz style often played during that era. Also, the costumes help tell the story not only by setting the scene with the men in suits and women in long skirts but also by the different hues of the outfits. At the beginning of the film the characters start out in light pastel colors. As the movie goes on and more danger ensues, the outfits slowly become darker until all the characters are dressed entirely in black. Most of the movie takes place on a cruise ship that is traveling down the Nile. The boat is mostly made of wood and uses a water wheel instead of an actual motor like modern day ships.

“Death on the Nile” starts with world famous detective, Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh), sitting down at a cafe and watching as drama unfolds between two couples. Six weeks later, we see him and Bouc (Tom Bateman) running into each other out in the Egyptian Desert (they had previously met on the Orient Express). Bouc then invites Poirot to go with him and his mother to a wedding party. It turns out that the happy couple, Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer) and Linnet Ridgeway (Gal Gadot), had previously ran into Poirot at the cafe. While they are there they run into Doyle’s ex-fiance, Jacqueline de Bellefort (Emma Mackey), who is trying to wedge herself between the happy couple. To escape Bellefort, the wedding party goes on a cruise out on the Nile; however, they are unable to escape her, and danger ensues leading to a death on the Nile.

The cast includes many big-name actors including Russell Brand, Rose Leslie and Letitia Wright. With such a star studded cast, viewers held high expectations and luckily they delivered. The range of emotions each character felt was performed expertly. For example, as the movie went on Brannagh started to delve more into the character of Poirot as the movie went on and viewers were able to see him go through many different stages as he came to terms with what was going on.

The movie is brilliantly done with everything executed in a way that makes the movie fun and exciting to watch.

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