When Kenneth Branagh brought back Agatha Christie’s great detective Hercule Poirot to the big screen five years ago in Murder on the Orient Express the film was a solid hit and it quickly greenlit a sequel. Now, five years later and after many delays, not all of them pandemic related , Death on the Nile has finally arrived, and while one might expect some fans to be excited, one audience is having an unusually exuberant reaction.
A video is going viral on Twitter showing an audience watching the film during a scene that was showed in many of the films trailers and promotions, where Gal Gadot remarks that they have enough champagne on board the boat “to fill the Nile.” The line delivery has become a meme in itself in the time since it was first shown, and this audience was apparently so into it that when she delivers the line they absolutely lose their mind. Check it out.
the audience reaction is absolutely sending me… pure fun camp!!! pic.twitter.com/zhImwnqKWTFebruary 10, 2022
It’s hard to argue that the line delivery is… not great. Gal Gadot is fine in the movie and so is the rest of the cast for the most part, but this line is the exception. It’s bad to the point that it’s a shock it was left in the film at all and even more shocking that it was used to promote the movie. Considering that the more recent promotions have seemingly made a point of trying to hide the fact that Armie Hammer is in the movie, it’s possible this line was needed, as it’s one of the few times Gadot is even on screen without Hammer as they play a married couple.
Still, this feels like a bit of an over-the-top reaction. It sounds like an audience at a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The original video came from a screening of the movie in Brazil, thus the Portuguese subtitles on the screen during the movie. Perhaps the viral memes surrounding the line was a particularly big deal down in Brazil, which explains the huge reaction. Or maybe this is just what theaters in Brazil sound like normally. Cultures are different.
On the one hand, I have to say, having seen Death on the Nile, that nothing in the movie is quite as ridiculous as this single line in the movie. There’s a certain amount of suspension of disbelief and heightened reality that comes with any whodunit, but the line delivery is otherwise fairly straight. It’s a fun detective story with an impressive rogues gallery. Some of them more rogue than others.
But who knows. Maybe other fans of the viral meme will go to see Death on the Nile just to see Gal Gadot deliver this line on screen and the whole thing will help make the movie a box office hit. Considering how much traditional dramas have suffered in theaters in recent months, every little bit helps.
