'Thirteen Lives' tells an amazing story

 

   Ron Howard's Thirteen Lives can be regarded as a procedural; i.e.,  a straightforward account of a story in which 12 boys and their soccer coach were stranded in a flooded cave in Thailand. 

   The event -- which happened in 2018 -- captured the world's attention as a team of divers combatted monsoon rains while trying to locate the boys and figure out how to extricate them from the cave.

   So, a procedural, yes, but one that tells an incredible story about a team of international divers and Thai Navy Seals who, after 18 days guided the boys to safety. 

   Difficult to begin with, the task became nearly impossible because the boys had to be equipped with diving gear that would enable them to breathe as the divers navigated treacherous waters and narrow passageways. 

   Howard introduces five divers played by Colin Farrell, Viggo Mortensen, Joel Edgerton, Tom Bateman, and Paul Gleeson. 

 Mortensen and Farrell receive the most attention as divers who don't always agree. The story also deals with tensions between Thai authorities, the Thai military, and the foreigners who arrived to help. 

  The Thai characters aren't especially well-developed but neither are the principal divers, who are given sketchy backgrounds. 

    The characters spend little time interacting with one another in ways unrelated to the rescue mission, so it's up to the actors to suggest deeper character traits. Credit Mortensen, Farrell, and Edgerton with doing as much as they can in this regard.

    Howard and cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom up the dramatic ante with rescue sequences that involve a decision that's best discovered in a theater, presuming you don't already know it. 

   The movie's underwater scenes must have been difficult to film but they tend to become slightly repetitive as divers make multiple trips through tunnels of the cave to save the boys.

    I expected an emotionally richer film from Howard whose filmography includes the gripping Apollo 13. He's working with a subject that seems firmly located in his wheelhouse but Thirteen Lives proves more resolute than inspiring.

   I don't think it's a spoiler to say that we know the outcome of such a well-known story from the outset. Aside from becoming international news, the rainy season rescue also is the subject of Rescue, a well-regarded 2021 documentary. But whatever its limitations, Thirteen Lives still has an amazing story to tell.

Floating along with 'Death on the Nile'

   No, Kenneth Branagh, you didn't murder Death on the Nile, but you didn't bring it to scintillating life, either Yes, you have improved over your last venture into Agatha Christie territory, the lamentable 2017 adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express. But in neither case have you attained the sizzle to which I assume your aspired.

    Enough with the second-rate Poirot imitation.

    I had hoped that Death on the Nile would provide the tonic that the big-screen needs at this doom-struck moment. Hardly awful but lacking in distinguishing spark, Death on the Nile turns out to be a middle-grade effort.

   As was the case with Murder on the Orient Express, Branagh plays Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective who has been solving crimes since Christie first introduced him in 1920.

   Branagh's performance — headlined by a freight train of a Belgian accent — functions somewhat in the same way as paint splattered on a carefully composed canvas. Branagh makes sure that we know Poirot is an oddball, a sharp-eyed detective with a taste for fancy pastries.

  None of this is to say that Death on the Nile lacks highlights, among them: Haris Zambarloukos's cinematography, Jim Clay's production design, and the costume design by Paco Delgado and Jobanjit Singh.

    But such accouterments have a downside, as well. I'm not sure that Emma Mackey, as the passionate, insanely jealous Jacqueline de Bellefort, isn't upstaged by her dress (think neo-Cleopatra) at a key point in the movie.

   Other highlights include Sophie Okonedo as an American jazz singer armed with a quick wit.  She's accompanied by her niece (Letitia Wright), a young woman who manages the singer’s business affairs. 

    Christie stories typically confine a large number characters in a single location, in this case, a yacht that embarks from Karnak for the honeymoon celebration of Linnet Ridgeway (Gal Gadot), a wealthy beauty who has married Simon Doyle (Armie Hammer).

    Before the story arrives in Egypt, we get London-based cabaret scenes in which Doyle seems to be totally consumed with passion for Mackey's Jacqueline de Bellefort. Passion or not, Doyle doesn't hesitate to drop de Bellefort for Ridgeway, thus setting off the jealousy that drives the plot. 

    De Bellefort hates being aced out by her best friend but she's far from the movie's only suspect.

    The passenger manifest includes the British comedy team of Dawn French and Jenifer Saunders. Annette Bening plays mother to Bouc (Tom Bateman), Poirot's pal and a generally carefree fellow. 

    I could go on, but only at risk of turning this review into a roster.

    Rather, I'll say that screenwriter Michael Green begins with a World War I flashback in which we learn Poirot's backstory, which includes lost love and an explanation of why he wears a mustache that qualifies as a special effect.

     For a finale, all the movie's suspects gather in a single location so that Poirot can pick them apart, preying on their weaknesses, until he finally reveals whodunit. 

    No harm will come to those who see Death on the Nile and some may enjoy its throwback pleasures. But I was looking to be buoyed by watching these folks, many without virtue, bob wickedly on the Nile. 

    Instead, I found myself merely floating along.