Kenneth Branagh has sneakily become a pretty prolific director lately with Belfast, which he won an Academy Award for Original Screenplay, and his Hercule Poirot Trilogy under his belt in recent years. A Haunting in Venice is the third in the trilogy and it has a darker turn for this character, but Branagh still plays him as jovial as ever. He just has a knack for how to play this private investigator.

When this film picks up, Hercule Poirot is retired and lives in a villa in Venice, Italy. He is contacted by an old friend Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), an Agatha Christie-like novelist; she asks him to accompany her to a Halloween Party at a local Palutso that may or may not be haunted. While there he meets a handful of people and gets involved in a seance in which he completely debunks. As is the case where Peariux goes murder follows and he has to figure out what happened. 

Part of the fun of these Poirot movies is the cast. This time out there aren’t as many big-name actors in the cast but Branagh does take the opportunity to reveal with his Belfast actors Jamie Dornan and Jude Hill as once again father and son, Michelle Yeoh as a medium with questionable morals, and Kelly Reilly who plays the mother of a deceased girl who may have a key role to play in the overall mystery that unfolds throughout the movie.

This was the first time this Agatha Christie story was ever put to film so Branagh did some unusual things to try to make it stand out. One of them was the cameras he used to film the movie with. In one particular instance, he had a rig attached to himself which gave a first-person perspective of his character walking down a hallway. The various cameras gave multiple different perspectives on the movie. Which is something that made the movie more interesting. 

As with the other Hercule Poirotfilms in the trilogy, there is a sense of humor with him as a character or his sense of being a fish out of water in strange circumstances like this one. Tina Fey, an ex-member of Saturday Night Live, is a funny woman and she also brought her own sense of humor to the proceedings. This was a different perspective from the rest of the film. I laughed a few times that’s for sure at some of the odd behavior and weird situations within the film.

This movie has a distinct feel to it besides the occasional funny moment. It’s supposed to be scary and have the audience reacting with jumpscares. The problem is even though the mystery was intriguing and rather fascinating the overall film wasn’t that entertaining. I felt the story was predictable but the characters lacked depth and Hercule Poirot has started getting stale as a character and the way Branagh portrays him is getting less and less enjoyable to watch on the big screen.

A Haunting in Venice is a movie that has some technical achievements regarding the cinematography and the camera work. Branagh used various cameras to give the film a special look. Maybe it was to mask the fact that the story is lacking and the mystery within the story is rather predictable. The cast in this movie like the others in the trilogy is fine but not very outstanding. The humor was a nice touch in the film but I felt maybe it was misplaced or rather the character has become stale and lacking an entertaining quality. This addition to the Hercule Poirot Trilogy wasn’t that good from my perspective. 

2 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen