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To Branagh's credit, tricking out a Poirot film with a fresh horror-adjacent aesthetic was a necessary move that is enough to justify continuing the series after the shaky Death on the Nile. The gothic production design, dim yet stylish cinematography and deployment of unusual camera angles that highlight both the claustrophobia of its setting and Poirot's scattered mental state as he's forced to reckon with the possibility of a hostile supernatural presence being behind the murder at a séance he's invesgatiting give A Haunting in Venice a significantly different feel than either film that predated it. Eventually, the shine of its new creative direction wears off once the central mystery slowly reveals itself to be another dry whodunit with a very clear culprit and an underwhelming conclusion loaded with silly reveals. But I'll be damned if it didn't take a good long while for the eerie, glossy spell that A Haunting in Venice was casting to give off the impression that it was truly a new spin on a Poriot film to wear off, which automatically makes it the most compelling and finely-crafted entry in the franchise.
Remember kids: If you're trying to repackage something that's functional, but worn-down and not very exciting, make you sure deliver it with as much flash as humanly possible. They'll wise up to what's really going on before too long, but they'll be impressed enough by the passion and pizzazz behind the sell job that they'll believe what's old has made new again for a little while and at the end of the day, that's the kind of small victory that provides somebody with a much-needed moment of peace and joy that will brighten up their miserable existence on this hellhole of a planet. Congrats on the small victory Mr. Branagh. Your efforts to get this movie made after the commercial failure of Death on the Nile were not in vain.
Grade: B-
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