TrueJoshNight Truly Dreadful Film

ScoobyMint Disappointment for a huge fan!

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

MattyGibbs Sparkling Cyanide is an Agatha Christie tale brought into the modern world. Unfortunately this take doesn't quite work. A football chairman's wife is murdered and there are several potential suspects. Unlike many Agatha Christie adaptations this one has a curious lack of suspense. The characters are mainly lifeless which is surprising given the quality of the cast. This can only be put down to a poor script. Like another reviewer mentioned, this film could have been done within the hour but is instead dragged out too long. The reveal is no real surprise and all in all I was quite pleased when it ended. Although not terrible this is a disappointingly dull adaptation. Not recommended unless as a time filler.

NineLivesBurra This movie is not worth the money they spent to make it. Poirot has gone and in his place, instead of people using their little grey cells, we have people using great big grey cells which were not in use at the time Christie wrote the book. To me, a Poirot novel is all about the psychology and the use of the little grey cells and without him and them, you just have another television murder mystery like all the rest.Poirot has something more as do all of Christie's detectives and this movie just does not do anything for me. Even David Suchet's Yellow Iris was far better than this and even that was not a brilliant interpretation of this Christie novel.

Sjhm Dreadful, slow, flabby, "modern" updating of Agatha Christie's novel. The entire story could have been over and done with in under an hour, but this bloated modern monstrosity drags on for over two.The problem with "updating" the storyline into the modern idiom of footballers and self-made men is that the social structure in which the original story was written has no modern equivalent. So there is no hook upon which to hang the theme.Oliver Ford-Davies and Pauline Collins drift around in the middle of this background-less mess and there is a lot of vague talk about spies and Berlin and Cambridge. I was uncertain at one point exactly what I was watching, a bad Agatha Christie or an even worse John Le Carre. With a script that makes little sense, and the addition of a cloyingly annoying grandchild, this is truly flat champagne.

gbennie After reading the book years ago and seeing the 1983 film version, (which was very dated), I was looking forward to this adaptation. I really thought that this film version would do all the right things and be set in the proper 1940s era. However, I was wrong and very disappointed at the modern take. It just did not work. The film tried to combine the traditional British aspects of the book with a modern setting, and the modern clothing really detracted from the whole atmosphere and elegance presented in the novel.It might have been to do with the scene of Iris in the shower that put me off, which was completely unnecessary or the fact that it was too similar to the modern mysteries nowadays (like "Lewis" and "Midsomer Murders") and lacking the clever old fashioned Agatha Christie touch.I can't remember the specific things about the cast - I do remember thinking how different Aunt Lucilla was portrayed in this version compared to the 1983 one. My advice: if you watch this do not associate it with the ingenuity of Agatha Christie, but rather see it as just another modern murder mystery. Even the 1983 version seems to succeed this in the end, despite its 1980's touches.