I discovered Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, a mystery TV series set in 1920s Australia, back when new episodes were still being filmed. I watched the first season then, and more recently went back and watched the first season again, followed by the second and third -- and I was so disappointed to learn that the series, which ran from 2012 to 2015, had been cancelled.

The show was a lot of fun, in large part because of the star, Essie Davis, who played the dazzlingly eccentric private sleuth Phryne Fisher. But it was more than just a one-person show; her performance was buoyed by a great supporting cast: Ashleigh Cummings as Phryne's Girl Friday Dot Williams, Hugo Johnstone-Burt as policeman Hugh Collins, Richard Blight as the butler Mr. Butler, Travis McMahon and Anthony J. Sharpe as helpful cabbies Bert and Cec, and, most of all, Nathan Page as Detective Jack Robinson, Phryne's opposite number on the local police force and her will-they-won't-they sparring partner.

So of course I was ecstatic to learn that the cast was returning for a movie, which was released during the great coronavirus pandemic of 2020. Although the spinoff series, Ms. Fisher's Modern Murder Mysteries, featuring a heretofore unknown niece of Phryne's in the 1960s, was a lot of fun, it was far too short -- only four episodes -- and the '60s just aren't as fun as the '20s, in my opinion.

So, how good is Miss Fisher & the Crypt of Tears? It's good, but it's not as good as I'd hoped.

It's still a fun, stylish romp headed by Phryne's pluck and good luck. But the filmmakers forgot that this was an ensemble piece, not just a show about Phryne and Jack.

Sadly, the cast didn't reunite for the film. Not truly. Phryne is back, of course, and Jack is quickly brought into the story as well, but Dot, Hugh, Bert and Cec make only a brief, inconsequential appearance for no real reason other than to say they were there. Even Australia fails to make much of an impression; although most of the filming was done there, the settings are London and Jerusalem.

I enjoyed the movie, but it also suffered somewhat from filmmakers' attempt to turn Phryne into a flapper version of Indiana Jones, or maybe an early Lara Croft. Phryne Fisher is a charming sleuth, but acrobatics on the top of moving trains and mystical artifacts aren't really her thing. She fits better in the mystery genre than she does action-adventure.

Director Tony Tilse directed several episodes of the series, so he should have known what worked and resisted the urge to make it something it's not.

Criticisms aside, it was still great to see Phryne back in action. The movie wasn't bad -- I rather enjoyed it, honestly -- but it lost a lot of what made the series work.

Early reports suggested this was the first of three movies. There's been no word how the current pandemic, which has halted a lot of projects in their tracks, will affect production, but I'm hoping the sequels still get made. Phryne, I think, still has a lot of life in her!