Not as bad as I thought it’d be.

I’m going to be honest with you folks, I thought A Haunting In Venice was going to be bad. Not because of the cast or the plot or the film itself, but because the movie released in mid-September and is already out on Hulu streaming. Not a great sign.

Directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh, A Haunting In Venice is clearly gearing itself up to be the final Hercule film in the series, at least as far as Branagh goes starring and directing them. As for when Hercule will return? I don’t know. The three films have dropped significantly in returns since 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express with its $352 million in sales to A Haunting In Venice pulling in $120 million. People might just not be that interested in another Hercule Poirot movie, at least not from Branagh.

A Haunting In Venice stars Kenneth Branagh as Hercule, now in retirement and exile in Italy. His bodyguard Vitale Portfoglio (Riccardo Scamarcio) fends off the riff-raff constantly trying to convince Hercule to return to his life of solving crimes, until one day his friend Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey) invites him to a seance. The psychic is none other than Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh) who Hercule is determined to prove as a fraud. Unfortunately this is an Agatha Christie story so someone has a bad case of the getting murdered. Locking everyone in and declaring himself unretired momentarily, Hercule leaps at the opportunity to solve the mystery.

As always there is a great cast in this movie. Every character is set up with their own motives and personality to make you wonder whether any of them coulda done it. And no this isn’t like Murder on the Orient Express where literally everyone had done it. Someone is the murderer. It could be you. It could even be me. It’s me, I did it. Watch the movie to see how I murdered [redacted].

I enjoyed this movie less than Death on the Nile, but I still found the set pieces pretty interesting. The set is well built and the scenes are shot competently with the big explanation coming at the end when Poirot finally gets off his ass and starts putting it together in the last act. Taking place almost entirely within an ancient castle-esque home, the scenery is very cramped but the actors and the cameramen make do with what they’ve got and it mostly works. If you find the previous films boring, you’re not going to be impressed by this.

A Haunting In Venice is a slow burn as with the prior movies. I definitely recommend it now that it’s on Hulu, and you don’t have to know any of the prior movies to watch this as they are all separate stories.

Rating: B