EVIL UNDER THE SUN (1982) ** Agatha Christie installment of the never ending serial of boring rich people trying to seem interesting. They try pairing in different formations, pay more attention to what they're drinking than drinking it, paint without celebration, play tennis in rhetorical clothing, complain about the food, and fail to get any decent measure out of their boats and playthings. It's fertile ground for satire, but instead Peter Ustinov presides over it all as a particularly bland, nearly conformist, Poirot. It's too bad, they should have just let them all loose on each other, it's a tremendous cast including James Mason, Diana Rigg, and Roddy McDowall. Instead they all stand around, not much more interesting than the sort of real-life stiffs they're imitating. The performances are good enough, but only Maggie Smith shows any life or imagination, and she's certainly been better as well. Purists may tell you that spectacular acting only detracts from the focal point-Agatha's plotting-but I have to say that even though she was more stingy than usual with clues, I had the murderer figured out less than halfway through. So, a sub par Poirot adrift with unnecessary clues in a milieu of aesthetic despair. The Adriatic Sea looks nice though, and it's all done well enough to fill up a portion of a dispassionate afternoon.
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