There are many mysteries swirling in and around Death on the Nile, director-star Kenneth Branagh’s second attempt, after 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express, to sell Agatha Christie’s master sleuth Hercule Poirot — and by extension, a larger Poirotverse — to a new generation of old people. (Let’s not kid ourselves here: This is a film franchise designed to appeal to adults who may or may not be interested in superheroes and droids but still want to go to movies that weren’t shot on iPhones, and it should be embraced as such.)
For starters: Who needed an origin story for the Belgian master detective’s mustache? While past screen Poirots from Peter Ustinov to David Suchet have sported delicately trimmed, elegantly waxed upper-lip hair, Branagh’s version has what appears to be a cresting, two-tier tonsorial tsunami happening in the middle of his face; the biggest question…
