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Agatha Christie: Marple - The Secret Of Chimneys (DVD)
Year: 2010
Rating: PG
Director: John Strickland
Cast: Mathew Horne, Julia McKenzie
Release Date: March 03, 2011
Distributor: Roadshow
The Film: 2.0
FILMINK rates DVDs and Blu-rays out of 5...there isnt anything in it that makes it required viewing.
The 2010 made for television adaptation of Agatha Christie's The Secret Of Chimneys is competently put together, but there isn't anything in it that makes it required viewing.
An Austrian count has been murdered in the historic English mansion, Chimneys, where Lord Caterham's family and their associates must stay until a professional detective and, principally, Miss Jane Marple (Julia McKenzie), an amateur one, solve the case.
Matthew Horne and Ruth Jones from Gavin and Stacey are brought in, apparently to provide levity, but it's not nearly enough as we spend most of the film waiting for things to wrap up.
Of course, the stirring secrets Miss Marple eventually uncovers (sorry... spoiler alert!) and the tales she tells in the last 15 minutes of the film are a lot more interesting and entertaining than the rest of the production.
Until then, the stakes in discovering the whereabouts of the big Indian diamond and who killed Count Ludwig are almost nonexistent. And by the time we work through all the blandness to get to the bit of excitement at the end, it's too little too late.
