Death on the Nile (1978)

 "Mon dieu, how she makes enemies of them all!"

I've read the novel, but it would have been around 1990-ish, so I wasn't expecting to remember much of the plot, and surely enough I didn't. So I was genuinely unspoiled for the big reveal. Nevertheless, I'll try and review this as a film rather than as Agatha Christie's original plot.

It's a very cinematic adaptation, shot on location at all the sights in Egypt as well as in rural England. The whole thing is exquisitely shot- particularly impressive is the first tracking shot of the dramatis personae all at dinner for the first time.

This isn't quite an all-star cast, but the star wattage is nevertheless relatively high, with no less a personage as Bette Davis in a middling sized role. David Niven is solid as the Watson figure, with Colonel Race giving some hilariously off colour views on those characters who deign to speak in a language other than English. Maggie Smith excels as a bitter woman in reduced circumstances, while Angela Lansbury is every bit as good as an amusingly sozzled romance novelist.

However... I'm not sure about Peter Ustinov as Poirot. It's not that there's anything wrong with his performance, he just feels miscast. He doesn't visually convince as Poirot, however well he may play the part. However, the overall performances are strong, and the film works superbly, helped by its awesome locations, in letting events play out dramatically, even if we do spend far too long on Poirot's explanation of how pretty much every character could have seen Jacqui shoot Simon through the window.

There are some fascinating moments here- a brief mention is made to a previous case involving a "decapitated clergyman". There's an unfortunate Indian stereotype. But overall this is a fine adaptation which plays the source material with a straight bat.

Creepshow 2 (1987)

 "I feel the need, the need for weed!"

It's getting close to Halloween which, I think, is as good an excuse to watch only fun, cheesy horror films for the rest of October. This is a particularly fine example, with three nice little Stephen King stories (he gets an amusing cameo) adapted, but not directed, by George A. Romero in another entertaining little '80s Hollywood version of those old Amicus anthologies. It's nice to see that the cast, while short of star wattage, is full of character actors with familiar faces who are getting prominent roles and nailing them.

The first segment, uncharcteristically, happens in some western state that isn't Maine, which is very un-Stephen King. It's a simple tale of a kindly old couple who are nice to the local native tribe and try to support their dying community, only to be cruelly murdered by a young psychopathic thug and his underlings, who are all then slain in increasingly fun ways by a wooden carving of a Native American  chief. It is, I suppose, vaguely racist in its stereotypes, but the killings are clever and fun. The axe in the back, in shadow but with a splattering of blood, is nicely done in particular.

The second segment, about four teenagers on a raft being menaced and killed off one by one by some kind of sentient oil slick, is superb. The straightforward plot doesn't really reflect the cleverness of how events play out for maimum tension. I love how all but one of the kids smoke some weed, making one expect a "drugs are bad, m'kay" undercurrent with the one girl surviving... but they are all doomed regardless. I love how the slick is inexorable and can't be outrun. There's no logic or reason to cling to, only fear and death.

The third and final segment is outstanding, as a very rich woman leaves the home of an expensive male prostitute(!), is late, and in her panic fatally runs over a hitchhiker who pursues her inexorably to her death after she drives off and tries to avoid the consequences. The horror and tension are nicely juxtaposed with her musings on the guilt she feels. On a mundane note, I smiled at the beginning when the digital alarm clock failed to go off and flashed "12:00" after a power cut. That exact situation made me late a couple of times back in the days before we all just used our phones...

This film isn't big, it doesn't claim to be clever, but it's enormous fun and gave me quite a feeling of warmth.

Moonraker (1979)

"I think he's attempting re-entry, Sir!"

Meh. This is Bond by numbers. It's just a collection of barely connected set pieces,  some of them admittedly rather good, leading up to a silly and implausible finale. Hugo Drax must have the resources of a G7 nation to build six space shuttles and a space station. The fact that Michael Lonsdale makes a dull and charisma-free Drax doesn't help either.

At least Roger Moore is on good form. He seemed a little old in The Spy Who Loved Me but he seems a little rejuvenated in his sixth decade. It's also good to see a bigger role for M in Bernard Lee's final film, with a suggestion that, deep down, he always had a high regard for Bond. The return of Jaws is a mixed bag; he gets some superb action sequences but the scenes of him falling in love at first sight are just silly. And he finally gets to utter four whole words!!! Still, I love the way hired him after Chang dies, the suggestion being that there's actually an employment market for henchmen!

But this is all very obviously influenced by Star Wars and very silly, at a time when peak human space travel had already given way to the age of the space shuttle and the Moon had given way to the brilliant Voyager spacecraft. And worse: it's very worrying to see a Bond film be quite as formulaic as this.