SineSupremus

The movie opens with an elaborate tragic backstory for Poirot's moustache. This is not a joke. I mean, it definitely is, but presumably it wasn't intended as such. We get the feeling that we are supposed to view Poirot's moustache and its tragic backstory with some degree of pathos.

Kenneth Brannagh's clearly a talented guy, and his 1996 Hamlet will forever stand as proof that he's better than his Wild-Wild-West-and-afterwards career, but his Poirot movies are baffling. Having Poirot madly brandish a firearm during the drawing room scene for Murder on the Orient Express was a definite CHOICE. As was hiring both Armie Hammer and Russell Brand for any movie released in 2022.

The movie has polish, and Brannagh is innately charismatic enough to hold the whole affair together at most times, but I'm still hoping this franchise will turn out to have been an elaborate hoax.

I watched this after having read nothing but negative reviews, so my expectations were low, but: for a relentlessly low-budget film, carried almost entirely by the inspired performance of lead Kandace Kale (an actor with no apparent internet presence besides this single IMDb credit, a Backstage profile, and- barring a case of mistaken identity- possibly a felony arrest on a California police blotter) this was a refreshingly well-crafted movie.

It starts slow. It ends slow. It suffers from Ready Player One syndrome- it's purportedly about teenagers, but teenagers exclusively interested in the cultural output of (approximately) the mid-1970s to mid-1990s. It seems to be crafted largely around sustaining a cast that is mostly attractive young women, a cast which it frustratingly refuses to exploit gratuitously. The plot itself seems like a bit of an oversight. But it's got a steady, enjoyable rhythm that suits its comedic tone well, and the moments that fall flat are outweighed by those that settle into a satisfying, low-key groove.

It's interesting to see how well a polemic like this ages. Like, hey: I'm not an idiot, I'm clearly anti-Trump and anti-Gamergate and anti-alt-right.

But, you know, in 2017 it apparently made sense to use Jesse Singal and Briahna Joy Gray as talking heads to unpack these phenomena.

A few years on, what really jumps out at the viewer is: wow, the people who saw themselves as having something essential to say on the subject- the above, alongside alt-reicht trolls like Cernovich and Spencer and Wintrich- have so much in common. They are all such shallow thinkers. They are all such narcissists. They are all so undeserving of our collective attention.

Just imagine how great our world could be if we could ignore these people forever.