It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Through no fault of the actors, this was yet again a poor remake of the excellent original starring Joan Hickson, who played Miss Marple as written by Dame Christie.Julia McKenzie is a fine actress and certainly more believable than the middling actress who played her so poorly and made a spoof of her.The writing is very much at fault in these remakes. It's trying TOO HARD to be clever and different at the expense of an already good story line. I found myself waiting for it to be done with so I could turn it off instead of enjoying it. Shame on the network for not truly appreciating Agatha Christie's simple genius of Miss Marple.I'm sticking with the original series. Joan Hickson was the only TRUE Miss Marple thus far that I've seen.

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

A really excellent episode opens this new Mackenzie season!The tropical atmosphere ,with hurricanes,voodoo and a very stuffy jungle is used perfectly for the creation of a compelling story,very faithful and with some clever new tricks added to the original.I liked particularly the accident about the murdered maid and her own zombie,used by Higson in a very clever way for giving an alibi to the murderer.I think it's the first time that zombies are used in a whodunit as a part of the murdering plot,and they have done it in a very subtle way,simple and particular in its own way.The directing is wonderful,the research of the murdered maid,the death of poor major Palgrave,the final discovery of the guilty party are particularly effective,as Bethany Cox has pointed out.Personally,I liked very much Webb as a caring husband,overwhelmed by his wife's madness.Charles Mesure was an excellent Dyson(I would have preferred it to Barnes-Worrell for Etienne De Sousa ,in Dead Man's Folly),and I liked too the smitten canon played by Rigby with a surprising romantic part at the very happy end.Of course Sher is the best of the lot, gruff,amusing and endearing,and he has a wonderful chemistry with Great Julia (the only reproach I could made to the Hickson version was the absolute lack of chemistry among Great Joan and Great Pleasence,two wonderful actors but in some way having in the movie no mutual empathy at all,I don't know why!) .Ford Davies is a sympathetic major and Norris a wife so strong,determined and highly dramatic that in some way wipes away completely her husband,poor Alastair Mackenzie,a good actor but in this case singularly bland and opaque.Higson is really a good new entry for the series.I hope he will pens other scripts with the same cleverness.Marple must not let us orphans too after Poirot's untimely death.We can't lose them both,someone must remain alive for carrying the holy torch of Agatha on ITV channel!New Marple seasons,please,it's mandatory!We want to see Julia in the Idol House of Astarte and in the Crooked House,under the Postern of Fate ,chasing N or M in a flashback prequel and tasting a swig of Sparkling Cyanide!