ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

Bereamic Awesome Movie

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

mraculeated The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

col-20347 I'm a lover of all A C's works,and enjoyed this with the exception of the portrayal of Miss Marple by Geraldine Mcewan. For me she brings absolutely nothing to the wonderful character that is M M. She succeeds only in making everybody else in the play seem exciting and interesting. So many actresses have bought their own particular take on Miss Marple. e.g Julia Mackenzie- warm,humorous, Joan Hickson-stern,forthwright. But you could be forgiven for assuming that Miss Mcewan is the deceased! And yet does seem to never receive any criticism for bringing nothing to what is a wonderful character that a lot of actresses would delight in playing.Sorry to speak ill of the dead but that is my overwhelming feeling. I've never seen Miss Mcewan in anything else to pass judgement on and do not have a grudge. But needed to say this as almost in a state of disbelief about this.

caviar1234 As many negative reviews as this series has received for taking too much liberty of Dame Agatha Christie's original work, I must admit that I find it quite enjoyable to watch. I personally don't mind it changed some of Dame Agatha's below-average original novels, and find a few of these adaptions quite interesting and even can be said as an improvement of to the original, especially for her late work such as At Bertram's Hotel, By the Pricking of My Thumbs, Nemesis and so on. The only one in my opinion goes way too far is Murder Is Easy. The incest element in this story could have made a decent episode of Midsomer Murders, but it's never for Agatha Christie adaptions and never will be! As for the cast, I like the portray of both McEwan and McKenzie, but find the two actresses too much of a contrary to each other, especially for the same character in a consecutive TV series. As for regular writers, Kevin Elyot's scripts are always relatively faithful ones, but sometimes it makes the film feel rather dull, most notably being A Pocket Full of Rye. Stewart Harcourt could always do some interesting changes while keeping the core of the original stories, I like most of his work except for Ordeal By Innocence. Paul Rutman wrote two episodes with quite different styles: They Do It with Mirrors is a rather faithful adaption to the original story, while The Secret of Chimneys is a total rewrite! As for Stephen Churchett, he's the one that brings many of his own ideas to the source material, sometimes they work to me, such as Nemesis and The Sittaford Mystery, and sometimes they don't, most notably being Sleeping Murder and, of course, Murder Is Easy, due to their incest themes. But dare I say that as many people might criticize this series for its "reinventing" attempts, I still praise ITV's courage of trying to seek a new way to make Christie's work being accepted to the audience, despite the controversial feed backs.

Jan Newson I read the book some years ago and enjoyed it, even though it was a little scary. This fiasco is nothing like the story told by Ms Christie and makes a mockery of a decent book. Geraldine McKewen is awful as Marple ( but then wait until you see Julia McKenzie she's even worse). In this 3rd rate adaptation we have a band of actors who have no reason to be there. It seems the makers had budget problems and spent it on poor script writers and even poorer actors (Dawn French!) It should state that it is LOOSELY BASED on the novel. It's a gripping tale of a woman from New Zealand who comes to England with her husband.She was told she was born and raised Iin NZ, but on house hunting she is drawn to a particular house and buys it. As she decorates and makes changes to the house, lots of coincidences occur and memories of being in the house before..........Please buy the Hickson version. It's filmed in Sidmouth, Devon.

TheLittleSongbird As a big Agatha Christie fan, whenever a new Marple is on regardless of any initial dubiousness I never miss it. The ITV Marple series does have some good entertainment value and is not as bad as it has often been dismissed as, it is well made, has good acting on the whole and is fun. But it is also very difficult to rate, because the adaptations are a very mixed bag quality-wise. And this has little to do with infidelity to the books(which is the biggest and most common criticism of the series), even as a fan of Christie I have always been a firm believer of judging adaptations on their own terms as long as it doesn't feel dull and makes sense.Admittedly some of the adaptations do not fare well with some of the changes made, the worst case being the ending of Body in the Library, still absurd even when you haven't read of the book, this viewer has, my parents hadn't and were pretty dumbfounded to the final solution of that one. Sleeping Murder also would have benefited much better if the incredibly haunting ending of the book was maintained rather than the Poirot-like denouncement that the adaptation had, the excellent Joan Hickson adaptation had it and it was done brilliantly, why wasn't it here(trying to solve the problem of having too many characters is my bet)? And then there's At Bertram's Hotel that if you took the period detail, Miss Marple and that it was a mystery drama you could have sworn it wasn't Agatha Christie.But some of the adaptations that really disappointed did so on their own terms. Sittaford Mystery did have good production values and acting but it was very difficult to get into when the mystery didn't really ever come to life with a first half that took forever to get going. Why Didn't They Ask Evans?(Secret of Chimneys to a lesser extent too) had a different problem in that it was incredibly convoluted(even when watching it again since reviewing the adaptation the ending made little sense at all). At Bertram's Hotel manages to be both, as well as being far too broad, with perhaps Nemesis also faring the same. The adaptations that added Miss Marple into the story also had a mixed effect, Towards Zero incorporated her quite well but Why Didn't They Ask Evans? for example had her too much into the background.The Marple adaptations for all the problems they have are not to be dismissed entirely. Because there are some faithful adaptations out there like A Caribbean Mystery and The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side(both better than the Hickson adaptations), and the third murder in A Caribbean Mystery works much better in the later adaptation than in the book and Hickson version where the murder was rather too much by chance. Some might find the exploration of Miss Marple's early life overwrought in Murder at the Vicarage, I thought it was genuinely touching. The Blue Geranium, A Pocketful of Rye and The Mirror Crack'd were really excellent as adaptations and on their own merits, A Murder is Announced is very good too. And while it did get confused and had too much padding at times, though it did keep to the core of both stories remarkably, Greenshaw's Folly was a brave attempt at merging two short series into one big one, doing it far better than the Poirot(a far more consistent series) adaptation of The Labours of Hercules. The series is well made, the locations and scenery from stately homes to more picturesque locations are stunning while the photography is pretty and atmospheric and the costumes are evocative and well-tailored.Good also is the music, the theme tune is catchy but can get overused like in the early Geraldine McEwan adaptations. The background music and snippets of music from the period fare very well. The scripting- though Sittaford Mystery and At Bertram's Hotel in particular are exceptions, stilted and underwritten- does have some nice doses of humour and has the right amount of intrigue, generally making an effort to make the mystery make sense. The stories come from truly great source material(A Murder is Announced is an example of Christie at her best like The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and And Then There Were None) and they are mostly compelling and fun to see unfold, with some suspenseful and humorous parts. Geraldine McEwan and Julie McKenzie fare nicely as Miss Marple. I do have a preference to McKenzie(whose adaptations are more consistent) who has more charm and more of a twinkle, McEwan is always knowing, appealingly spunky and steely and makes the most of her screen time but can have a tendency to be over eager. Neither to me are as good as Joan Hickson who IS Miss Marple.Most of the support acting is good, Zoe Wannamaker, Sharon Small, Lindsey Duncan, Timothy Dalton, Derek Jacobi, Jane Asher and Fiona Shaw very good(I'd go so far to say Small and Duncan were revelations), while Harry Enfield, Allan Davies and Elaine Page worked surprisingly well. There are exceptions however with some over-acting(Warren Clarke, Samantha Bond, Joanna Lumley, Shirley Henderson, Catherine Tate), under-acting(Freddie Fox, Jonas Armstrong) and a few wastes(Richard Briers, Jane Seymour- she was still quite good it was screen time really-, Joanna David). So all in all, very difficult to rate seeing how mixed the adaptations are- hence the lack of a rating- with a lot of good things and a lot of problems. Bethany Cox