A trendy one-take pass through a WWI foxhole apprises audiences of how Agatha Christie’s legendary Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot (producer-director Kenneth Branagh doing triple-duty) came by his tufted handlebar. Once aboard the floating scene of the crime, the fuzzy computer generated backdrop is distracting to the point one can’t help but question whether the cast spent so much as one minute of their time afloat or terminally dry docked in green screen. In the race to see how many furtive glances the cast can rack up, relative newcomer Emma Mackey beats out a close-up ready ensemble that includes the pedigreed-likes of Annette Bening, Gal Gadot, and Sophie Okonedo. (Also along for the ride are Armie Hammer and Russell Brand.) At one point Poirot has a private audience with each suspect before corralling the cast into one stateroom, Charlie Chan style, to assign guilt. You’ll never guess who the killer is, which I surmise is the point of a whodunit and the main reason I’ve never taken a liking to the genre. Keep me guessing where the next cut will take me, not who brained Colonel Mustard with a lead pipe in the ballroom. If given the choice between this and Belfast, the latter wins by virtue of a much shorter running. (2022) — Scott Marks
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