Review of Murder on the Orient Express (2017) by Chris O — 21 Dec 2017

A fun, simple, murder mystery.

From the novel by best-selling author Agatha Christie, "Murder on the Orient Express" tells the tale of thirteen strangers stranded on a train, where everyone's a suspect. One man must race against time to solve the puzzle before the murderer strikes again.

Never having read the original classic was a positive. If anything, I was only mildly interested in this film, as it doesn't seem like there are a lot of murder mysteries out there today. While this genre seems to be popular amongst novelizations, it's not an easy thing to bring to the big screen. Thankfully, this film was rather a pleasant watch, and an entertaining one at that.

One thing I liked about this film was some of the select actors. There are some people who put in their best performances here. The first one that sticks out to me is Josh Gad. This guy, more known for his comedic approach, put up one hell of a dramatic performance in this film. I mean seriously, he put in the best performance of his career here. Kenneth Branagh, the main protagonist, also did a great job. I thought he brought a lot to his role and he certainly did a good job. I also felt Johnny Depp put up a pretty great performance, as he's known to do so in the right roles. I also thought Daisy Ridley and Leslie Odom Jr. also did great in their parts. While I don't think everyone here did fantastic, the aforementioned did great along with a couple others. The cast in this film is pretty strong overall and is certainly worth a watch based on them along.

The story is interesting enough and I think the best thing about it is that it paid off. The thing about mysteries being adapted to the big screen is the fact that they probably won't work. There are so many easy outs you can take and for a while, I thought this film was going to take an easy out. Thankfully, I felt as though the story had me enticed and I wanted to know how it would end. I think the ending actually paid off and I wasn't expecting it. That's a real positive for this film, but it's also important to keep in mind that with mysteries, they typically don't warrant a second viewing. I don't know if this is a film I would watch again, which is saying something.

I also thought this film looked particularly well. They had some nice shots with shallow focus, and the setting was built pretty well. I thought the overall atmosphere felt crammed, which is what they were going for. This film overall was shot pretty well. It's not extraordinary by any means, but it doesn't look half bad.

In the end, whilst this is a fun film, it's only good at best. It's certainly not bad, but it's not over the top blow your mind sort of deal. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, but not enough to watch it again.