I'm.... actually glad my plans to see this with a friend at the theatre fell through so she didn't hear me mumble cursing at literally everything I just watched

you gotta give Poirot's mustache an origin story

but that's not how scars even work

he was in like his 40s-50s during WW1!

HE'S BELGIAN

his mustache wouldn't even cover those Jonah Hex scars even if that's how scars worked

what's kind of even more infuriating is the rest of the movie that I've seen so far is pretty solid

admittedly it's been probably over a decade since I've read Death on the Nile so I don't remember the exact plot of the story, it was enjoyable

though it pretty closely followed the plot of the OTR radio episode I listened to a few months back that clearly adapted this story so it must have been at least somewhat accurate

but why they decided to shit all over Poirot's backstory is baffling

they could have left that out and all the poirot falling for the singer stuff and it would have been fine

I loved Murder on the Orient Express

(The Old Time Radio episode was one of these, I forget the adaptations title)

(I think it was Rendezvous with Death)

they... they gave his moustache a backstory?!

(I'm not super familiar with Poirot, but his moustache?!)

sonopants: a tragic backstory

one that the ending tries to give more meaning to!!

in canon his whole mustache thing is that they were in style when Christie was writing the books and he was a vain motherfucker who had to look perfect. that's it

it was literally just drip

okay so here's the beginning:

The movie opens to this WW1 flashback where a French soldier named Poirot guides his regiment through no man's land using his powers of deduction, only for his captain to activate a tripwire and blow a bunch up.

the captain, I must note, had a big ass mustache like Poirot does in "present" day

At the hospital, the guy is talking to a British nurse about how they were supposed to get married and they can't now, then she goes on a rant about how you love everyone despite their flaws and he turns his head, revealing almost Jonah Hex/Joker level face scars. She goes "well you'll just have to grow a noustache"

later in the movie he tells someone the British nurse lady died on a train that got bombed after he begged her to visit him in the hospital for Christmas

throughout the movie he hints he has feelings for this jazz singer lady

at the end of the movie he goes to see her perform in London and the camera spins around him, revealing his scared, freshly shaven face

they SHAVED POIROT???

basically implying he grew the mustache as a memorial to dead nurse lady and shaved it to show he's moved on

🤣

lluosogrwydd: yes

I need to see if I can find screenshots now

this motherfucker preens about his beautiful mustache like three to five times per book!

at least!

motherfucker (affectionate), I should say

tragic mustache backstory

like his mustache would hide those

I don't think a mustache is gonna help this

(where no mustache could possibly ever grow again)

I don't even think he could grow one???

YEAH

anyway he's not French

cheeks, unscarred

no he definitely couldn't with that wound

shaven

those scars don't even match

how can you give poirot a weird dramatic character arc that involves shaving him, he loves that fucking mustache it's like half of his entire thing

because love or some nonsense

it's fucking stupid

we can have a murder mystery movie that simply does not include a romantic subplot

my incomplete list of grievances with the stupid backstory they gave him, as sent immediately to my best friend

1. Poirot is fucking Belgian
2. Poirot is a WW1 Belgian refugee
3. Poirot was a cop, never in the military

4. Poirot was in his like 50s at least during The Mysterious Affair at Styles (first book chronologically) because Hastings is like 27 and can't shut the fuck up about it
5. Poirot has admitted to liking 1 woman ever and it wasn't this lady
6. Poirot never had facial scars
7. You can't grow hair on fucking scars

Also the captain implied Poirot was a farmer before he joined the war in this and that's also insulting so throw that at 8

that last part was apparently slightly wrong--Poirot himself says he wanted to be a farmer after the war, which is somehow worse

them trying to do a cool guy dramatic war thing with poirot deducting his way through a minefield is buckwild, like holy shit

it is absolutely nuts

"okay so like the birds are acting weird so we should go now because wind"

is literally the story

it's like rdj sherlock deducting his way through slow-mo fight scenes

that one's at least fun to watch

yeah I find that one amusing

you don't get the sense they're doing it to like, improve on canon or something, it's just fun

yeah, and I'm not such a canon purist with things that it would automatically ruin something for me

but they also didn't give him a tragic deerstalker hat backstory either so...

THE DEERSTALKER COVERS HIS FUCKED-UP PHANTOM OF THE OPERA HEAD.....

🤣

it's so completely bonkers and unnecessary that they did this

I'm going to forget everything else about this movie, which, I must stress, is fun if a bit slow

I’m about to fall asleep, but I came back to “they shaved Poirot?!” and just burst out giggling, thank you for that

I was also cracking up at the THREE SHOT DERRINGER.

But yeah, there was so much off about that move. I need to restart my Poirot reread.

sonopants: I lost it there too lol

Bugly42: I got to book 3 on my reread and got distracted, I need to go back

I reread the synopsis of the actual book and the imdb trivia page, and found it a bit interesting that it didn't open with poirot running into them at a club in London

only because that's exactly how the radio episode opened too-- complete with Poirot getting a private table and anything he wanted on the house

and him commenting on young love

okay it's not exact exact but it sets it all up before he meets them elsewhere

Here's a copy of it: Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot: Rendezvous With De...

(in the radio show Poirot is on vacation in America so everything is American because 'murica)