Sometimes I hate things so much I write small essays on why I hate them. This is just an ocassion. I haven't hated a movie so much since Ready Player One.
I've also just finished watching 1978 Death On The Nile. The new one - that one I've watched yesterday. Watching them back to back, I guess, increases the hate towards the new one substantially. Either way...
See, a friend of mine wanted to watch a new Death On The Nile movie. We've watched the new Murder On The Orient Express together, and I didn't like it much, but it was an OK film overall, so I've relented. But God knows the 2022 Death Of The Nile left me outraged. I didn't like it one bit. Comparing to 1978 version, I don't even know where to start.
First of all, the plot. 2022 chopped, remade and created a lot of new plotlines, which left the whole impact much less effective. Poirot looks like some kind of cheap B-movie superman or something, exposing everyone oh-so-tragically in the last second, closing almost every plotline in the last minute - and it truly looks like cliche city. Not to mention all the new plotlines that do not make much sense at all... Some holes and anachronisms included. Electric guitars? Possible, but very unlikely. Poirot's wound is obviously on his cheek in the beginning of the film, how the hell his moustache was supposed to cover it? Not to mention that in the end of the movie the scar moves to his upper lip. The crew of the ship leaves at night, abandoning the ship entirely in the hands of the passangers in the middle of the river. Etc, etc... Small points, but strung throught the movie they drop by drop invite disgust with the movie itself.
Next point, the characters. 2022... Bowers and Van Schuyler are lesbians. I'm just tired of lesbians in my movies and animation. This is it, this constant propaganda is actually making me a homophobe - I just can't take it anymore. But I also find it surprising that those two characters are in relationship, especially given that they hate each other in the original, and some of that hatred carried over into the new movie - do they imply that same sex relationships are so incredibly toxic? This was very weird piece of propaganda. Speaking of which - I'm sorry to say it, but black characters are disgusting in Death Of The Nile. I hate this kind of blatant, political characters, that straight away tell to viewer: you are wrong. Moreso, they right away disgrace the main character throught the movie. Note that it is entirely possible to add black characters into modern adaptations of the classic and make them look good, in place and likeable. Case in point: Color Out of Space, 2019. Black character is amazing, entirely likeable and looks great in the final scene, and I don't care if it is Lovecraft, out of all things, where he is present. In Death Of The Nile, they only invite more disgust for the whole cast.
And the cast do have problems. Poirot himself looks, as I've already pointed out, like some kind of cheap B-movie superman - and now I mean that he lacks a lot of humanity in the movie. He is... a freak. Maybe that was the entire point, since characters themselves point it out in one scene, but I don't think that such a portrayal is anyhow likeable. Frankly, almost the whole cast has troubles. I will only go through the trouble of pointing out the biggest one - aside from the ones already mentioned - the removal of colonel Race, who served as a great background for Poirot and acted like an accurate counter-balance on screen. Bouc, lacking any detective skills, leaves Poirot alone from point one, and it doesn't work.
The third point is the graphics. Oh my God, they are bad. About half of the graphics look absolutely off, with the underwater scene bringing me back into the era of PS2 games. Jesus. And as I know things about Egypt, those pyramids looked terrible. I think they've got them from Ubisoft or something. Needless to say, just a glance at the actual pyramids in 1978 movie reveals how far off they are in 2022 movie. I don't know why - once again, graphics can be good - but in the modern movies oh so often all these graphics are looking absolutely lifeless, and Death On The Nile is not the exception. I want to like them - I like bright things - but I just can't. It looks bad, and that's all I can say about it.
Actually, the whole 2022 Death On The Nile looks lifeless. The movie just lacks the simple scenes. The ship lacks crew, which only appears at the moments when the plot requires them and conviniently entirely disappears during all the other scenes. Hell, I wonder if the crew has been graphics as well. 1978 movie is life. There are people on the bank of a river mooning the rich european tourists, there is an actual, living cobra (oh, how do I miss living animals on the screen!), and, above everything, Poirot himself is a joking, smoking, drinking fat piece of humanity, rather close to his portrayal in books, while the new movie only emphasizes his quirks forgetting that he is a human entirely. Flanderization is the word, I think.
I'm not even sure if I should continue. The actors overact in the new movie - not much, but take it as a cherry on the cake. They also say that AEgyptians buried their wives alive with their Pharaoh when Pharaoh died - this simply wounded me personally. Not even cheap pulp fiction book that I read now, full of magic and living sphinxes, allowed itself such blatant defamation. I wonder if Death Of The Nile is the reason because of which I've saw this absurd mentioned twice in the recent year, when I've never saw it before.
Overall, I've disliked new Death On The Nile so much that I've decided to delete 2017 Murder On The Orient Express from my HDD as well. If you haven't watched those movies - just stick to the classics. I cannot list enough reasons why they are better.
