Starring Kenneth Branagh, Tina Fey, Camille Cottin, Jamie Dornan, Jude Hill, Ali Khan, Emma Laired, Kelly Reilly, Riccardo Scamarcio, Michelle Yeoh, Rowan Robinson and Amir El-Masry

Directed by Kenneth Branagh

20th Century, out now

Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) is retired, living in Venice and enjoying pastries and peace and quiet. Until old friend Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey) invites him to a séance. Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly) is a retired opera singer grieving her dead daughter. Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh) is a medium who claims to be able to speak to the dead. Tonight, in the middle of a storm that shakes Venice to its roots, those powers will be tested. And so will Hercule Poirot’s.

I honestly don’t think Kenneth Branagh has ever had more fun as a director than he does here. Dutch angles, fishbowl lens, flashes of supernatural energy, lightning, storms, rain, shadows. Branagh throws everything at the wall and it all works, crashing Poirot’s fortress of rationality down into a fever dream of terror. He has so much fun, and as a result, so do you.

The rest of the cast are great too and the movie visibly benefits from being the first in the series to not feature anyone who makes you go ‘Oh no, they’re in this’. Fey is incredibly good fun as Poirot’s pseudo-Hastings and her chipper banter with Branagh provides frequent comic relief the movie could stand more of. I would watch a Thin Man reboot with these two. I’d watch them read the phonebook honestly, they’re so much fun.

Michelle Yeoh continues her renaissance as Joyce and the movie does its best work when it plays with just how real her powers are. Jamie Dornan and Jude Hill, two of Branagh’s Belfast stars, excel too, repeating their father/son dynamic with a rather more poignant edge and Ricard Scamarcio is great as Poirot’s hulking, stoical bodyguard.

The standouts though are Emma Laird and Ali Khan as Desdemona and Nicholas, Joyce’s assistants. Their feral need to survive collides with Poirot’s search and gives the movie several of its best moments. Those moments also highlight the meaty themes at the core of the movie: faith versus rationality, the truth versus lies and whether what you do is all you are.

Verdict: A Haunting in Venice is the best entry in the series to date. It’s smart, funny, tightly plotted and has an urgency unlike everything else in the series to date. Great fun from top to bottom. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart