User Reviews

Like her predecessor Geraldine McEwan, the new Miss Marple, Julia McKenzie, has a great deal to overcome. The main issue is the skewed adaptation of Agatha Christie's original. While I do love Christie and Miss Marple, I'm actually getting a great deal of enjoyment out of this series. Yes, it's NOT Miss Marple to the word, and "Evans" never was a Marple Story. I read the book a few months ago and in my opinion, that book wasn't one of Christie's best. It's not a biggie with me that they've placed Miss Marple in it or they've made changes to the story. I simply enjoy watching mysteries made in England and set in other time periods. There's murder without buckets of blood and tons of gore on the screen, like we get here in the states. They murder each other while being beautifully dressed and serving tea and scones. Miss Marple cuts below the facade and gets her man.....or woman. She does't drop a stitch either. All in a day's work.

One of Miss Marple's friends has a son (Bobby) who was on a Cliffside walk when he discovered a dying man who said the words "why didn't they ask Evans?" before passing away. The official enquiry into the death appears to have done a poor job of investigating anything so Bobby and rather impetuous and attractive friend Frankie take matters into their own hands. Enlisting the help of Miss Marple (whose methods vary greatly from her young charges) they trace the man back as having been at Castle Savage – home to a family as wealthy as they are dysfunctional – where they find the head of the family recently dead with money to be inherited, wills being questioned and relationships strained. It certainly appears something is wrong in connection to the man's death and key to solving it is understanding his final words.

It must be boring to read (it is certainly boring to write) but again I will say that it personally doesn't bother me that this is a poor adaptation of the book or that it was never a Miss Marple story or any of these things. I can totally understand why this would be the key thing to those that love the book and wider works of the writer but for me it is about the film, not the book. All I am looking for is the film to work. Things are generally good from the start – the cliff-side opening makes for a good hook – and the tone is generally better than films from the last batch. The title panel is the only thing that appears not to have gotten the memo that we're not doing the "slightly OTT light-entertainment" thing anymore because, beyond the "matinee adventure" style font, the rest of the film is quickly sturdy and enjoyably serious without being overly serious or dry in the way some of the 1980's BBC Marple's could be. So in terms of tone and potential I was sold.

The cast mostly add to this well because, although full of recognisable faces none of them overplay and because there isn't one clear "guest star", it prevents you assuming that the star is either the murderer or a red herring. Marple may not be in the original story but McKenzie continues to be the main character. Sadly she also continues to do little for me. It is not that she is "bad" but she doesn't do anything with the role of note and doesn't do anything to make enough of a character to make me be able to decide if she fits the character or not. The main thing she does is a bit (slightly gormless) smile and widening her eyes – an effect that I guess is supposed to make her look friendly and thus get people to talk but to me only has the effect of making her look more like Jim Broadbent than ever. Biggerstaff is not great but Moffett is better and the two together do add a bit of fun to the trio investigating the crime. Bond, Briers, Spall, Williams, Mayall and Dormer all do good work in support matching the tone and making for a good cast.

So why is it not that great a film then? Well, simply put the writing gets worse the more you watch. The Marple films have never really been ones where the viewer can be ahead of the mystery particularly easily but this is one of the worst ones for this. Not only does it not make a lot of sense as it goes along but the "solution" is a real crock, with it not making sense and not being clear how Marple was able to make any of the massive leaps she had to make to get there. It is annoying to be engaged in a mystery just to have it suddenly solved out of thin air – deeply unsatisfying. Of course it doesn't help that the poor development of the solution often means that the scenes between the start of the film and then were already feeling a bit pointless and lacking direction – I didn't understand why up till that point but at the end I realised this feeling was because a lot of what had gone before was unconnected to the solution. Suddenly a minor character that was barely on screen became the most important character in the story and even then their part in it didn't really scan. Even the conclusion manages to have one of the people in the room kill one of the murderers in cold blood (not self defence) but yet we get nobody saying anything about what happens to that character as a result – again just adding to the viewer's feeling of being unsatisfied with how it ended.

It is a shame because, while I am not taken by McKenzie, I am enjoying the more steady and serious tone that the recent Marple films have had. None of them have been brilliant though – at best they are OK but this one blows the potential of the mystery by making the solution come out of nowhere and be full of so many things that are unsatisfactory, confusing or just make no sense that it spoils a lot of the positive qualities that it had. I'm not too bothered by the writers changing the source material but if they are going to do it then they must make sure that it works – here it most certainly does not.

After watching the rather plodding "A Pocket Full Of Rye", "Why Didn't They Ask Evans?" was exactly what I needed: an audacious premise and a break from formula. Because here we begin with five words, and we watch as the story is being built from scratch - the question is not just who is the killer, but also who is the victim, who is this Evans, is he a witness, etc. The ending caught me by surprise (it's been ages since I watched the earlier TV version), and although the film undeniably cheats (Miss Marple seems to know things that the viewer had absolutely no chance of finding out beforehand), the main twist hidden within the title is ingenious! This one also has a more engaging cast than "Rye", especially the charming Georgia Moffett. And I like how Miss Marple's function changes in each of Season 4's stories - in "Rye", she is the seeker of justice; in "Murder Is Easy", she is the outsider-investigator; in "They Do It With Mirrors", she is the supportive friend; and in "Evans", she is the mentor and guide of two young people with bright minds but not enough experience yet. Julia McKenzie has settled into all these roles quite comfortably. *** out of 4.

It has taken me a long time to bite down the horrid re-writes of Agatha Christie's books. This series has done many hatchet jobs and made her books into garish, horrible episodes. However, I've accepted this and focused mainly on the visuals and the acting, not the story.

With that in mind, I actually enjoyed "Why Didn't They Ask Evans." Yes, there are many issues like the first 30 minutes barely showing Miss Marple at all, and the story re-writes. But that was done to Geraldine McEwan in "Bertrams Hotel", with a created hotel maid summing up the crime. Yes, I have the book and it wasn't a Marple story, but neither were many done in the first three seasons.

I do enjoy Julia McKenzie in this role and think she is almost as good as Joan Hickson, who did a superb job. The young actors sleuthing the crime with her were also very good. They kept the actual ending of who was "Evans." The visuals of the English countryside were stunning! And they kept the background music appropriate.

A disappointing episode with an excessive amount of change and improbabilities and an outbreak of overacting from many players,from Mayall to Murray to Clarke to Williams,is really saved from the disaster by the generous efforts of Sean Biggerstaff and,above all, of Georgia Moffett,really shining as the two junior detectives,and singularly overwhelming titular sleuth McKenzie,reduced to a simple,if skillful,sparring partner for the two Partners in Crime.Frankie and Bobby,and a good Natalie Dormer as the mysterious Dark Lady of an exceedingly convoluted plot where the awkward additions to the Agatha's adventure really don't add too well,save the TV movie from the catastrophe of Sittaford and of the very awful Appointment in the Marple's sibling series Poirot.In some way,the plot is similar in the basic structure to Agatha's novel,and we are here far from the worst.Evans is not the Abominable Bachelor of late Jeremy Brett,but certainly is not a very pleasant plot.It's a pity,because the first half of the movie was very amusing, and a bit more of fidelity to the source could have driven it easily to the Golden Dozen of the Marple Marvels.

I'm a younger viewer and haven't read the books, so I have no conclusions to make about the story.

That said, I do enjoy British mysteries and this one suits me fine. There is the visual beauty of England, very good acting, and a decent if somewhat confusing story. The young couple are funny and engaging. Miss Marple is neither a fussy old biddy nor a cutesy clown. She's kind and down to earth. Yes, the story takes many twists and turns, with more "adult" themes than I've seen in older Marple movies. I wouldn't let kids watch, for sure. I was surprised to find out at the end about "Evans," and exactly why the question was asked. It's rare for me to be able to see a mystery that I can't figure out in the first 15 minutes. That's why I prefer British ones.

I watched all of these Miss Marple episodes and thought they were all very good. I am enjoying this new season with Julia McKenzie. She is a very different from Geraldine McEwan who was also very good.

A dreadful mess of a script meanders slowly through an unrecognisable plot awash with poorly acted characters who have clearly been misunderstood in the writing process.

WHY DIDN'T THEY ASK EVANS? The original title and the character of Evans is really the only thing left from the story. Which plods... interminably. Is nothing like the book. And... by rights... should have Agatha Christie fans almost incoherent with rage.

Into this disaster they have grafted Miss Marple (Julia McKenzie). The kindest thing I can say about this is that the graft simply hasn't taken. It is not the fault of Ms McKenzie who seems to have a very good handle on Miss Marple, despite the fact that she has been dropped into a story with very little to do except pop up from time to time and has been given dialogue so thin it is practically transparent.

Bobby and Frankie seem incredibly immature, and Frankie's unsubtle questioning grates on the nerves.

Why didn't they ask Evans? is not my favourite Christie book, but scarcely deserves the appalling treatment it has received here.

Im a fan of Christie books and normally the TV adaptations are quite good, but this is not. The cast is good- I really like McKenzie and you've got some good names there (Natalie Dormer, Samantha Bond, Rik Mayall) but none of them can salvage this mess.

Miss Marples hardly in it at the beginning and it focuses more on posh Lady Frankie who's accent 'oh pongo... Yes... Lady Derwent you know' and constant belief she knows everything got on my nerves. The relationship between the two young main characters was not the best in a Christie adaptation- Frankies seemed to treat Bobby often with childish cruelty rather than with chemistry. The ending itself was completely ridiculous, with the murderers constantly pausing to allow Miss Marples narrative rather than actually murdering the person like they had ample opportunity to do, which was clearly forced and unrealistic. And then the two orphaned murderers- one with a sad tale of being forced to 'entertain soldiers' in China- were 'murdered' themselves. The ending was silly and felt unfinished.

By all means watch, but be prepared for a rather disappointing end to an hour and a half.

After watching this inaccurate, insipid film, I've completely given up on these new Agatha Christie adaptions. "Why Didn't They Ask Evans?" was not originally a Miss Marple mystery, and in countless other ways has been altered so drastically that it's hardly recognizable as the same story.

I understand that when transforming a novel to TV or film, characters, times, places and events need to be altered, collapsed, edited, etc. for the sake of time and pacing and so on. Fine, we all get that. But it seems as though "Why Didn't They Ask Evans?" hasn't been altered for any logistical reasons; it's so far from the novel (which, by the way, is delightful) that they may as well have gotten rid of the last ties to the original plot and just called it a 'new' Agatha Christie mystery. It was successfully done with the Gershwins (in the form of "Crazy For You," calling it a 'new' Gershwin musical). However abysmal those new stories might be, it would probably infuriate infinitely fewer people if they just wrote new stories instead of destroying classics.

Dear Lord, what an awful load of trash. Completely abandons the original plot, you could never figure out what was going on. There were far too many characters, especially original characters. I could never figure out what was going on with the girl 'investigator', why she seemed to think she knew everything constantly. Perhaps something was lost in the adaptation with her character, which with this production, probably wasn't hard to do, since everything else was messed up.

And what in the name of GOD was going on with the end?! What was the point of murdering (YES MURDERING) The poor children that were abandoned in China? Especially Moira aka Alice, that one was BLATANT murder. There was no need to inject HER with the poison! At least the Uncle and Mother did/would have deserved what they got! They created the monsters that came into their home.

I have never been so disappointed in a Miss Marple before. I am really disliking this series. I miss the old ones. I adore Miss Marple programs, but this one just left me feeling frustrated, and as if I'd just lost a portion of my life I can never get back, for absolute trash.

It is very disappointing that the so-called "writers" of this film, and further more, all the other Julia Mckenzie renditions of Agatha Christie novels, think the can do a better job than the acknowledged greatest crime writer ever, by changing completely what she had written .... Even to the extent of including Miss Marple in a story which never included Miss Marple, not the only instance of this blasphemy. Please, if you want to pretend to be a writer, try for originality rather than half hearted plagurising of a legend. Please do not commit the same crime with Poirot as you have done with Tommy & Tuppence and Miss Marple. Thank you

I haven't read the book or seen any of the other adaptations, but somehow this Marple didn't really connect. It got a bit jumbled at times, and I got a bit confused by the characters looking quite alike really.

Productions of Agatha Christie stories are rarely without merit, but this was one of the more disappointing efforts, full of anachronisms, poor continuity and inconsistencies. Examples: the characters of the two juvenile leads, Bobby and Frankie ("juvenile" was never more apt), belong to the twenties, not the fifties: a flapper and her young man, both displaying incredible stupidity; the crashed Austin Healy undergoes a miraculous recovery, and how did Miss Marple get to the mansion where the action takes place? Commander Peters was so thick as to be unemployable, even as a policeman in an Agatha Christie story, and what naughtiness precisely was the doctor up to with "Moira"? The explanation of what Sylvia was up to in China was so hard to follow that the "surprise" revelation of the guilty parties had no preceding clues. Moreover, the mode of the murders, while sufficiently grotesque, seemed unduly elaborate.

As usual, it is easy to forgive these shortcomings to some extent, because the production is handsomely mounted, and with a cast including Warren Clark, Mark Williams, Richard Briers, Samantha Bond and Rik Mayall, there has to be a certain amount of pleasure in watching it. However, I do hope that later episodes in this series are less irritating.