Death on the Nile movie review: Kenneth Branagh’s star-studded whodunit falls short on intrigue and feel

The template of this film isn’t an unfamiliar one at all - if anything, it is probably just dead in the water. Language: English Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile, the second instalment of the Branagh-Poirot Universe, begins with an origin story – one that is set in the early months of World War I. The matters of Poirot’s lovelorn heart remain one of the most memorable aspects of this film, though it is relegated to being a minor one. Here, she plays Jacqueline De Bellefort, former best friend to Linnet Ridgeway; ‘former’, because Jacqueline was supposed to marry Simon Doyle, before Linnet stole him away. The ensemble cast is largely fun to watch, even if all their shenanigans and Poirot’s careful deductions don’t always add up to a convincingly thrilling whodunit.