"My name is Hercule Poirot, and I am probably the greatest detective in the world."
Since 2017, Kenneth Branagh has directed a film series adapted from the novels of Agatha Christie, featuring Christie's iconic mystery literature hero, the Great Detective Hercule Poirot. Branagh himself portrays Poirot in the films. Three have been made so far, and the series is noteworthy for being the first time that Branagh has directed sequels of any kind.
These productions reflect modern filmmaking sensibilities, from lavish production values all the way to Adaptational Diversity, and generally boast an All-Star Cast. The films are produced by 20th Century Studios (though the series started under 20th Century Fox before the acquisition by Disney).
This film series includes:
- Murder on the Orient Express (2017) - Adapts Murder on the Orient Express.
- Death on the Nile (2022) - Adapts Death on the Nile.
- A Haunting in Venice (2023) - Adapts Hallowe'en Party.
This film series provides examples of:
- Adaptational Backstory Change:
- In the novels, Poirot was already a renowned detective and retired Belgian police chief when World War I broke out, at which point he came to England as a refugee. This series' version of Death on the Nile depicts him as a soldier during the war, and he aspired to be a farmer after the war was over. The tragic death of his lover Katherine is seemingly what drove him to become a detective.
- In Death on the Nile, the Race Lift of the Otterbournes to African-American also comes with racism that the characters faced before the story.
- Adaptational Diversity: A number of characters got a Race Lift from white to other ethnicities due to Kenneth Branagh's habit of Colorblind Casting. In some cases the racial background plays a role, such as with the now-black Otterbournes in Death on the Nile, who were subjected to racism before they went on the cruise, with the film also featuring two characters undergoing Adaptational Sexuality.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Inverted. In the books, Poirot is said to dye his hair and mustaches, a fact that somewhat embarrasses him. In these films, Branagh has him sport a dignified gray.
- Age Lift: Poirot, while still an older man, seems to be younger than his literary counterpart. The literary Poirot, while perpetually an old man, debuted in 1920 as such, while the Poirot in the films served in World War I as a young man and in the present may be prematurely grey haired.
- Character Exaggeration: In the books, Poirot is very proud of his brains and quite vain about them, however he won't usually demonstrate that to suspects, as part of his strategy to give them a false sense of security and appear only as a Funny Foreigner until he's ready to corner them. In these films, however, he challenges the suspects directly while calling himself "the greatest detective in the world".
- Mystery of the Week: As with the source material, the films follow this format.
- Scenery Porn: These films bring much lavish scenery to Agatha Christie's stories with the Orient Express going through snowy mountains, the ever so picturesque banks of the Nile in Egypt and, of course, the City of Canals, Venice.
- Viler New Villain: The murder culprits thus far get steadily more heinous with each new film. The Murder on the Orient Express culprits are vengeance-motivated anti-villains whom never actually attempt to kill anyone aside from their intended target (who was much worse than them even when they're at their lowest), and Poirot is ultimately convinced that they deserve to be let go. The culprits in Death on the Nile are a lot more greedy and selfish in their motivations, and willing to murder people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, though they deeply love each-other. Then A Haunting in Venice features a culprit who murders people on flimsier suspicions that they might be onto the truth of their crime: which is that they committed filicide (albeit accidentally) because they'd been poisoning their own child just to prevent them escaping their smothering control.
