Brightlyme i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

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SparkMore n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Peereddi I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

Coventry My dear wife needn't worry, as the only other woman I worship has been dead for over forty years, and even still, she would be way out of my league. Damn, I love Agatha Christie! I love her novels, short stories and stage plays and I love practically every film and TV-series adaptation that is based on her work. My favorites, of course, are the major film-productions starring eminent ensemble casts like "And then there were None" (1945), "Witness for the Prosecution" (1957), "Murder on the Orient Express" (1974), "Death on the Nile" (1978), "Evil under the Sun" (1982) and more recently "Crooked House" (2017). All this just to make abundantly clear that you shouldn't expect a very objective review from me... The plot of "The Mirror Crack'd" is once again fabulous! It's a murder mystery/whodunit that is compelling, misleading, intelligent and unpredictable. The first time you read the novel or watch this film, it's downright impossible to guess the denouement, and even after repeated viewings it remains surprising and original. Seriously, where did Agatha Christie keep finding the inspiration to come up with dozens of convoluted crime stories like these, without ever repeating or becoming a caricature of herself? "The Mirror Crack'd" takes place near the quiet village of St. Mary Mead and introduces Angela Lansbury in her first role as the clever, observative and perhaps slightly intrusive Miss Marple. These are exciting times for the little village, since a huge American film crew installed themselves at a country estate in St. Mary Mead to make a historical movie about the British Royals, and the cast even includes the multiple Academy Award Winner Marina Rudd in what should be her big comeback role after a long period of depressions following the birth her mentally handicapped child. During a spring picnic event at the estate, where the entire village is invited, a seemingly random woman instantly dies from poisoning after she spent a long time talking to Mrs. Rudd and shared drinks with her. When eyewitness confirm that the lady, Heather Babcock, actually drank Mrs. Rudd's glass because hers got spilled. This leads to the deduction that Marina Rudd was the intended victim, and there are plenty of suspects with a motive to kill her, including the evasive PA of Marina's husband/director Ella Zielinski, Rudd's eternal rival and the downright obnoxious supportive actress Lola Brewster or even husband Jason himself. Or, who knows, maybe even the butler did it! Miss Marple's nephew at Scotland Yard leads the investigation, but naturally it's the sly spinster herself who guides him into the right direction. I'm sure the prominent critics are correct when claiming that "The Mirror Crack'd" is severely flawed, but personally I didn't notice too many shortcomings. The unfolding of the mystery is truly absorbing and tense, with a few efficient red herrings and secretive characters. The scenes at the gathering, prior to the murder even, are terrific, notably the moments with the "frozen" Marina Rudd and the hostile confrontations between her and rival Lola. I've never been too fond of Elisabeth Taylor, but her performance as the vulnerable Marina Rudd is very powerful. Class-A actors/actresses like Angela Lansbury, Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson, Geraldine Chaplin and Edward Fox give away stellar roles as well, but I would have preferred that the role of butler Charles Gray was slightly bigger; - like the case in the 1962 source novel.

lasttimeisaw At the heels of two massively successful adaptations of Agatha Christie's detective novels - Sidney Lumet's MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1974) and John Guillermin DEATH ON THE NILE (1978), Guy Hamilton (GOLDFINGER 1964) is in the driving seat of the third one, and he would follow up with a fourth venture EVIL UNDER THE SUN (1982).Like the said three, THE MIRROR CRACK'D has a star-stud ensemble including Taylor, Hudson, Novak, Curtis, Lansbury and Chaplin (also features the movie debut of Brosnan, snuggling over Taylor's bosoms), imagine what a sensation it would be, if it were to be made 15 years earlier when their star power was in its heyday. Yet, unlike the other three adaptations, here, the gumshoe is a woman, Miss Jane Marple (played by Lansbury con brio, who would soon star in the long-running TV series MURDER, SHE WROTE 1984-1996, as the mystery writer-cum-sleuth Jessica Fletcher).The prologue is the screening of a black-and-white whodunit MURDER AT MIDNIGHT, for the audience in the fictional English village St. Mary Mead, and a glitch occurs right before the inspector (Stock) is about to disclose the murder, and Miss Marple quips with her verdict "the one who seems to be the most innocent, often, is the murderer", which can be exactly borrowed to the following murder case of Heather Babcock (Maureen Bennett). Babcock is a simple-minded village girl, a big fan of the two-times Oscar-winning Hollywood movie star Marina Rudd (Taylor), who comes across the ocean to shooting her comeback movie about Mary, Queen of Scots, which is directed by her husband Jason Rudd (Hudson), but the producer Marty Fenn (Curtis) wants his wife Lola Brewster (Novak) to play Elizabeth I, Lola and Marina are sworn enemies with some old scores to settle, so can two divas co-exist in the same set? Meanwhile Jason is having an affair with his stolid assistant Ella (Chaplin), thus, when Ms. Babcock drops dead after imbibing a poisoned drink which is supposedly made for Marina, who is the one behind this heinous crime? - yes, it is the one you least suspect.Frustratingly, the movie is not on a par with aforementioned three mysteries, as Hamilton half- heartedly throws all the red-herrings under a rather blasé condition, arbitrarily dampens the critical scenes which contain significant clues and withholds important information so it is impossible to divine the motivation from an audience's standpoint (we do want to play detective!), the manipulation is atrociously tactless when you think back about it after the finale and the loose end (about the reasons to dispatch a second victim, just to name one).But, the cast, a batch of has-beens, duke out as if it were their last chance to be glamorous and taken seriously in front of the screen (which is dolefully true for Taylor, Novak and Hudson in this case), unwittingly casts a pall of melancholy into the act. Taylor's soul-pulverising "frozen" look, Hudson's jaded desperation, Novak's campy showboating, both embarrassing and affectionate in the same time, that's something eventually salvages the unwieldy vehicle from being an abysmal pablum, so in a way, this time, it is time itself who comes to the rescue.

Roedy Green This is my least favourite Agatha Christie movie. It has lots of well known actors, Angela Lansbury, Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak, Charles (Rocky Horror) Gray, Tony Curtis, Rock Hudson, Geraldine Chapman, but only Elizabeth Taylor gets a juicy role.Taylor and Novak vamp and camp about like a couple of drag queens or like Vera and Mame in Mame insulting each other. I did not find it amusing, just embarrassing and boring.Miss Marple smokes! Heavens. Talk about out of character.It is all just too overblown and melodramatic. The score is similarly overblown and Gone With The Windish. It is just not believable. I have a pretty low bar. I can even handle Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple.

keith-moyes-656-481491 This is the third version of this story that I have seen. It is OK, but suffers by comparison with the Joan Hickson and Julia McKenzie TV versions. Like the earlier Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile, it gives Christie the glossy, big budget treatment. That is the problem.The movie suffers from 'all star cast' syndrome.Rather than being written by a screenwriter trying to tell the story effectively, it feels as if the screenplay was negotiated by agents, who were only concerned that their clients had an equal number of 'big' scenes. As a result, we get Edward Fox doing most of the detecting (with Angela Lansbury's Marple just a bit player), Elizabeth Taylor emoting for England, Rock Hudson being pained and sincere, Tony Curtis revelling in his seedy producer act and Kim Novak camping it up as Queen Bitch of the Universe.Clearly, the stars are having fun, but once they have all had their share of screen time there is only enough left to tell half the story. For example, the murderer of Ella Zielinsky remains a profound mystery. Either the explanation was lost in the editing or Elizabeth Taylor vetoed it because it showed Marina in a bad light (killing the woman who had harmed her child is one thing, killing the secretary to save her own skin is another). Similarly, the sub plot about one of Marina Rudd's abandoned step children turning up at the village fête is dropped altogether. These plot elements are missed.Somebody should have reminded the producers that it doesn't matter how many big names you have in a movie, the story is always the star.In fairness, there were enough good moments and good lines in this movie to keep me amused for 104 minutes, but The Mirror Crack'd is one of Christie's best mysteries and it deserved better treatment than this.