Death on the Nile: Agatha Christie was born in 1890, and the peak of film adaptations of her works dates back a long time (like, 70 or 80 years). The entire structure and flavour of this type of delectably manufactured whodunit, with its cast of suspects drawn in purposeful broad strokes and its know-it-all investigator whose powers of deduction are directly descended from Sherlock Holmes, is based in the cosy symmetry of the studio-system age. Sidney Lumet’s 1974 “Murder on the Orient Express,” a lavishly corny and irresistible amusement in which Albert Finney played Belgian detective Hercule Poirot as a fussbudget egomaniac with pursed lips and hair that resembled an oil slick, was probably the last big-screen Christie adaptation that could be considered an outright success, both critically and commercially (he was like Inspector Clouseau with a brain transplant).

“Murder on the Orient Express” was an event film (it received half a dozen Oscar nominations, and Ingrid Bergman even won). The Christie adaptations that followed, however — “Death on the Nile” (1978), “The Mirror Cracked” (1980), and “Evil Under the Sun” (1982) — were half-baked suspense flicks that felt like the flickering embers of a genre. In recent decades, the Christie formula looked more at home on television (for example, the British “Miss Marple” series), where it came across as less hermetic and precious — that is, until Kenneth Branagh picked up the gauntlet for his 2017 version of “Murder on the Orient Express.” That film was a mixed bag: excellent production qualities, a witty sense of humour, and insufficient tension in an excessively familiar mystery. However, Branagh, who acted from beneath a moustache so long it appeared to have its own geological layers, imbued Poirot with a droll dyspeptic noodginess.

“Death on the Nile,” based on Christie’s 1937 novel, is effectively Branagh’s sequel to that picture, and I was curious to see if he could tighten the screws on his Christie adaptation. He is correct. The new picture is sharper and more inventive than “Murder on the Orient Express,” and it’s a moderately entertaining dessert that keeps you entertained throughout. It never gets over the impression that you’re seeing an antique being injected with life serum, but that’s part of its minor-league charm.

Apart from Branagh, the Nile is the first star in “Death on the Nile.” The Egyptian locations initially feel a little phoney — you can tell the Pyramids are CGI — but by the time the characters are wandering through the dusty nooks and crannies of Abu Simbel, the massive riverside temple carved out of a cliff as a monument to King Ramesses II, it transforms into a backdrop of arresting majesty. The S.S. Karnak, a huge, two-tiered riverboat steamer hosting a dozen luxury vacationers, is the second star. It’s a paragon of 1930s wealth porn, full of tunnels and compartments, and a greater, more elaborate vehicle for tension than the Orient Express. The third star is a vindictive aristocratic love triangle that succeeds in engrossing us in the drama preceding the murder, allowing the foul play to heighten the tension.

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