This week’s offering is on A Haunting In Venice. But first…
All apologies to my readers…I was AWOL last week. I try very hard to hit the pleather seats and chomp corn every single week. Sometimes life intervenes. In this case, we were all hands on deck to prepare for a massive engagement party at Average Dude’s house…which included finishing out the Average Dude’s Mancave (which we have dubbed ‘The Screening Room’). It was a big task and a big hit. Average Dude is very proud.
But my dedication to you is resolute. Look for a second review later in the week.
Mrs. Average Dude is a crafty lass (not in the derogatory way). She absolutey is in her element when decorating for an event. And Halloween is her unchallenged favorite event. To help her get into the spirit of the Season of the Witch (see what I did there?) she wanted to go see a scary movie. She’s not big at all on splatter movies (nor am I, tbh) so she chose A Haunting In Venice to satisfy the craving. I’m not sure that her craving was sated. Mine sure wasn’t.
Hercule! Hercule! Hercule! (did it again, somebody is going to have to stop me…)
A Haunting in Venice was directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot, a French detective of great renown. You might think of him as France’s weak answer to Sherlock Holmes. And yes, I know Poirot appeared in 86 works by Agatha Christie. I did not even know the name Hercule Poirot before this movie so I said what I said.
In honesty, I had no idea this was an Agatha Christie movie. If I had, my expectations might have been different. But the end result would probably have been the same, maybe worse. Christie is widely considered the gold standard of ‘whodunnit’ fiction. If I had plopped down in my seat with that in mind, I might have turned my analytical knob up to 11 (I did it again…can’t help myself).
So, was A Haunting in Venice a quality whodunnit? This is where the ‘meh’ comes in. It wasn’t the worst I’ve ever seen, but guessing the culprit was just that, a guess. There were definitely not enough ‘clues’ to allow us to piece it all together. Not even close. Scooby Doo did it just as well.
Giving A Haunting in Venice a bit of a break here…it’s got to be nigh impossible to do a proper whodunnit these days. We as an audience have become so used to forgiving plot holes, editing oopsies and suspension of disbelief that pretty much any of the clues could have been overlooked as mistakes. The quality bar has been set appaullingly low. We have nobody to blame but ourselves for allowing it to happen.
I’ll spare you all a rundown of individual cast members. I’m sure they will thank me later…
So, was there anything to truly like about A Haunting in Venice? Nothing that comes easlily to mind, I’m afraid. The dialogue seemed over-rehearsed, if that makes sense. Branagh rattled off his lines in a decent French accent, but the words sounded too polished, too perfectly metered. Is that a characteristic of Poirot? Maybe. But in the moment, it all just felt rushed, like a bad actor would do. I don’t think Branagh is a bad actor so I have to assume it was a director’s choice. And it seemed to be a contageous quirk, because Tina Fey fell into the same habit. So, if it was a director’s choice, it missed badly. For the Average Dude, at least.
If pressed to find a positive in this, I’d have to say that at least I’ve now been warned that Agatha Christie movies are not going to be given the attention they deserve as far as writing goes (and it goes a long way, obviously). In a world that has become okay with sub-mediocre writing in our entertainment, a true artist like Christie is just not going to thrive. Sad but true, I think.
I’m giving A Haunting in Venice a 2 out of 5 and will say that, unless you are a ride or die fan of Agatha Christie or Hercule Poirot, skip it. At any time. Even when it shows up on streaming (should be a couple of weeks from now, I’m guessing).
Let’s just put this one behind us and move on to the second helping of Average Dude Movie Reviews, coming tomorrow. I promise you, it will be worth your time and corn!
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