This is no doubt one of the most disastrous Agatha Christie adaptations ever made. Just like the 1980s' US TV movies ("Murder in Three Acts" and "Murder Is Easy" were the worst examples), it simply 'adapts' the action, the characters and everything else to the present, including the most hideous hairstyles and clothes. Not one bit of love or even respect for the First Lady of Crime shows throughout, and there's not even any suspense to speak of - in a murder mystery, if you please! The only ones who make something halfway decent out of this film are the protagonists, Pauline Collins and Oliver Ford Davies - it takes really great actors to deliver such performances in a film like this.

Say what you will about Agatha Christie's prose, but at least she could cobble together a reasonable plot. There were some dreadful Christie movies made in the 1970's and 80's, mainly for the US market. However, more recent treatments for UK TV starring Joan Hickson as Marple and David Suchet as Poirot lifted the game somewhat.Sparkling Cyanide was far from being Christie's worst book. This movie, on the other hand, is a strong contender for worst adaptation of one of her books. The dialogue is so stilted that even Christie would blush and the clunking efforts to modernise the story are cringe-making. The writers clearly thought the idea of retired people using mobile phones and email so original that it should serve as a major plot line. The lead actors are miscast and, at times, look as if they are mentally firing their agents as the execrable dialogue sticks in their throats.The script is leaden, the plot turgid and the final product shameful. Avoid.

After reading the book years ago and seeing the 1983 film version, (which was very dated), I was looking forward to this adaptation. I really thought that this film version would do all the right things and be set in the proper 1940s era. However, I was wrong and very disappointed at the modern take. It just did not work. The film tried to combine the traditional British aspects of the book with a modern setting, and the modern clothing really detracted from the whole atmosphere and elegance presented in the novel.It might have been to do with the scene of Iris in the shower that put me off, which was completely unnecessary or the fact that it was too similar to the modern mysteries nowadays (like "Lewis" and "Midsomer Murders") and lacking the clever old fashioned Agatha Christie touch.I can't remember the specific things about the cast - I do remember thinking how different Aunt Lucilla was portrayed in this version compared to the 1983 one. My advice: if you watch this do not associate it with the ingenuity of Agatha Christie, but rather see it as just another modern murder mystery. Even the 1983 version seems to succeed this in the end, despite its 1980's touches.

This Christie adaptation was flagged as "in a modern setting, with a contemporary twist". There was so much twist they forgot to tell the story, which is a good one. Characters were introduced briefly, with thumbnail descriptions in voice-over, instead of being allowed to show us who they were. Then the "contemporary, modern" angle was shoved in our faces. "And this is my wife, Alexandra, a high-flying barrister, you know, not like in the olden days when women didn't have jobs, and here's Rosemary's sister, who's a personal trainer to the stars and has a black footballer boyfriend, not like in the book which is old fashioned, twee, quaint and weedy and she's a debutante who possible works as a secretary." Instead of a dashing male detective we have two old buffers obviously based on Christie's characters Tommy and Tuppence - former secret service agents who are occasionally called out of retirement. Of course they have to use computers and mobile phones the second they are introduced, and get themselves offstage with "You shadow the husband, I'll go and DO SOME RESEARCH ON THE INTERNET, you know, that modern thingy that they didn't have when Christie wrote her books I mean in her day they probably sent messages by a man in a cleft stick and were hopelessly dull and oldfashioned and never never did anything interesting like having sex." Actually the original Christie story is teeming with adultery - read the book! Read the book! And then watch the enjoyable 1983 film with Anthony Andrews which has the sense to stick to Christie's story. Updating from the 50s to the 80s, and moving from England to America, makes perfect sense. But avoid the TV version with David Suchet, filmed as The Yellow Iris, which muffs the story badly, introducing an unnecessary trip to wartorn South America (!?) and not even showing the second dinner party (filling in time with an equally otiose "South American" dance rehearsal).