Reviews

This episode was a total bunch of claptrap. The story itself was good right up to the ending. The characters were well developed and the plot unfolded very nicely until Havers stepped in and ruined everything. If the murderer had been exposed in any other way it would have been a real good story, but it wasn't.

I don't know which was worse, the incredibly stupid things she did, her gross,(repeated)insubordination, or the fact that Lynley, after repeatedly telling her to go back to London and report to their superior, not only let her get away with it but used her (illegally obtained) "evidence" in the final confrontation with the murderer. Throughout the episode Lynley was busy chasing nicely planted red herrings and the case would never have been solved without Havers' illegality. Based on her incredible, totally illegal behavior no prosecutor would ever be able to obtain a conviction with the evidence she presented as it would have been considered "fruit of the poisonous tree".

I read a previous review where the reviewer wrote that the movie was very faithful to the book. I can only ask, what book had she read? If my husband, never having read the books, hadn't just watched A Caribbean Mystery and wanted to see Nemesis, I would have turned it off after the first scene.

I have read everything Dame Agathe Christie wrote and I consider A Caribbean Mystery and it's sequel, Nemesis, to be the two best things she ever wrote, especially Nemesis, building, as it does so cleverly, on the Caribbean Mystery. I consider Nemesis to be a superb piece of literature and the story a masterpiece in it's telling. I have read and reread these two books many times and still enjoy them, so this movie adaptation came as a horrible shock.

It went all wrong from the very beginning with Miss Marple's newly separated "Godson" staying with her. He was never in the book at all. In the book, Michael Rafael, son of the late Mr. Raphel of Caribbean Mystery fame, was in jail, having been convicted of murder, and does not actually come into play until almost halfway through the book; in the movie he is a homeless man wandering around London with a dog and appears very early on.

In the book, Miss Marple is given one ticket and goes off on the bus tour alone, in the movie she is given two tickets and takes the Godson along. At this point I am ready to pull my hair out! I wanted to turn it off, however, aside from the fact that my husband was engrossed, I wanted to see how bad it could get. It got steadily worse. The only place it even vaguely resembled the book is that the proper people got murdered although one did not even die as they did in the book, not even close.

Nothing, absolutely nothing,(except the scene near the end in the bedroom, which was excellent and exactly as it was in the book) happened in this movie the way it did in the book, as a matter of fact, if you hadn't read the book, the movie would be very difficult to make any sense out of because the actions of the characters were all out of place and made absolutely no sense. This movie is a total savaging on Dame Agatha Christie's wonderful work and is not worth watching. The book was very low key, methodical, and totally devoid of melodrama; the movie was all highly ridiculous melodrama.

If you have watched this movie without reading the book, I would suggest that you get the book, read it, and then write a review. If you have read the book, don't watch this movie, you will be bitterly disappointed. Or, watch the movie and then write a review.