Agatha Christie's Marple: A Caribbean Mystery (2013)

That was an excellent one.

Am I Missing Something?

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Miss Marple is on holiday in the Caribbean, at the Golden Palms resort in St Honore. Seated beside her at a dinner, Major Palgrave seems to recognise in the crowd a murderer from a photograph he has. When Miss Marple quizzes him on is comments he refuses to be drawn on the subject and head back to his room. He is found the next day, dead, apparently from a heart attack. Due to the reaction he had the previous night, Miss Marple suspects it was murder.Reasonably intriguing mystery, with a great setting. The Caribbean vibe and the underlying current of voodoo and general sinister air help the intrigue. Not a particularly complex mystery ultimately, but it will do.The non-mystery side of the Miss Marple series tends to be pretty dull and uneventful, due to the blandness of Miss Marple's character and the fact that she has no regular secondary characters around her (unlike Poirot with Hastings, Japp and Lemon). However, here we have a reasonably interesting sub-plot involving Ian Fleming, the author, and how he struck upon the name of James Bond for the hero of his books. Unfortunately this sub-plot is quite brief, but it is reasonably entertaining.

I have a huge fondness for the Joan Hickson version and a surprisingly soft spot for the one with Helen Hayes, this one I thought really came up to the mark, they managed to reinvent it but maintain the essence of it. It starts off brilliantly, it's visually stunning, Andre Toussaint's 'Calypso Island' sets the tone. It's a total contrast to other episodes in the series, it's very bright and colourful, but this story needed to be. The location is utterly stunning, surprisingly it was South Africa. The costumes are a visual feast, the designers were bang on the money.Talk of voodoo in a Marple, shouldn't work, but it does, it helps add a smokescreen to the story. It certainly differentiates it from previous versions.I disagree with those that think the novel was one of her weakest, it's one I really like, it's a perfect holiday read. This production manages to breath life into some of the characters that in the book are a little flat, Lucky seems way more interesting, or possibly it's just the way Myanna Buring played her (brilliantly.)The acting as always if first rate, I think Julia is the standout once again, her performance seems effortless. Hermione Norris is especially good as Evelyn, she made her as cold as ice, she doesn't overplay it. Charity Wakefield gives us a very fragile and timid Molly, very much in character to the book. Anthony Sher is excellent as Rafiel. I suppose my only slight bugbear would have been Robert Webb's Tim Kendall, he was fair, but I feel he could have been better castThe Ian Fleming bit apart it's brilliant 9/10

Starting from a minor but irritating point: whoever thought it a good joke to include Ian Fleming and James Bond did not think about the chronology. The first Bond book was published in 1953, while this story is set in the post-colonial 1960s - the black police inspector tells Marple and Rafiel that the British are not in charge here any longer.Otherwise, a fairly good job. I knew it was filmed in South Africa but if I hadn't known I would have bought it as a Caribbean island. I haven't been to either place, though. I also haven't read the novel. I have seen the 1983 version with Helen Hayes many years ago, but don't remember a single thing about it.IMO Antony Sher gave the best performance as the wheelchair-bound millionaire. MyAnna Buring as Lucky is another cast member I will remember, something striking about her. The plot I already forgot, as with most Christie adaptations. The photography could have been more inspired, now it looked a bit muddy most of the time.

This movie was different than the one with Joan Hickson.Julia McKenzie is good in this. The similarities were that every couple seemed to be cheating on their mates. It was hard to figure out who was doing the killing and why. The movie was a good mystery with a lot of twist and turns.The story concentrated on voodoo and it's affects on believers. I do not recall that in the one with Joan Hickson. It had crazy dancing, masks for voodoo rituals and cheesy voodoo costumes. Baloney.I did not the like the clothes on the women. Some of the bathing suits revealed to much of the female breast. I was enjoying the movie until about 20 minutes toward the end. One of the men in this drama who was a alcoholic and womanizer used the swearing for "god damn" he said it twice. The first part "god" was not very clear but I do believe that is what he said. I find this offensive toward a loving God.It seems producers do this and put it at the end of the movies like "The Cheap Detective" The same thing happened. That movie was funny and then at the end it swore the same phrase. Just a bunch of creeps making movies and figure if they put this in the beginning a person just won't watch it. They are right.