Agatha and the Curse of Ishtar

Her fictional works are do much more interesting than this. I find her to be most annoying especially with her deliberate lack of sharing her thoughts, for 'dramatic effect'. Give me Ms Marple anytime.

Lyndsey Marshal has a history with Agatha Christie adaptations and I believe she was a good fit for the character of Agatha in this film. However the character itself was a bit too bland. Also the story was showing random people getting killed without telling us anything about them. Agatha's lack of emoting combined with the overall care free reaction to murder of just about everybody made the film feel implausible.

Now, the acting was decent for all, without it being stellar in any way, but it was really difficult to empathize with any of the characters or feel for the history or culture of Iraq. And to top it all off, they added the artificial character of Pearl, whose only reason for existence seemed to be being an educated and attractive Black young woman who had a few scenes to complain about not being taken seriously, then proceed to be irrelevant to the story.

Bottom line: the storytelling felt amateurish and failed to compel me in any way. Too bad, because the acting was good.

Penned by the same writer who wrote last year's surprise package Agatha and The Truth of Murders, but a different actress in the lead role. Lynsey Marshall steps in to replace Ruth Bradley, and does a fine job.

It's a very slick production, it looks great, it's well filmed, and very well written. It was a good old fashioned mystery. I love the way they penned a situation for Christie. Stunning location work.

It more then made up for the lack of Agatha Christie drama on the BBC this Christmas. If only this had been transmitted on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day.

Is this a trend? Will there be another one next year? On this evidence I hope so.

I had some expectations for this, largely due to Ms Marshal's presence, and it does indeed have several high values.

But it has three features which spoiled it for me: the weirdly soporific sound quality; the dismal pacing; the, let's face it, dreadful script; the cringe-inducing stabs at romance for the lead character; these four chief weapons; -- yes, after watching it, one feels one has been entertained by the Spanish Inquisition.

It has all the trappings of a pretty period drama, and it probably wasn't cheap to make, but the plot and the dialogue are absolute drivel. Jonah Hauer-King is a tasty piece of eye-candy but ogling him is the only pleasure to be had from wasting your time with this.