Review of Murder on the Orient Express (2017) by Joel Z — 20 Nov 2017

I've read the book. The movie follows the book fairly closely, though it stumbles at parts. It condenses a couple of characters but does not suffer for it. Mainly, I believe that there is just a fundamental difference between a mystery book and mystery movie. That which makes a good mystery book does not, by definition, make a good mystery movie. Details which can be easily glossed over in a book are harder to ignore in a movie, or you run the risk of not showing them enough for the audience to feel they had a genuine chance to solve the case.

Pros.

Acting: Branagh is a very convincing Poirot, his mustache is appropriately groomed. He reads more into the character even more than perhaps the author intended and it makes the movie better for it. The rest of the cast acts quite well.

Visuals: It is a gorgeous film. Almost every shot is intriguing and artful.

Cons.

The mystery cheats: This is a completely subjective thing, but at the end of the book I felt as though I was so close to putting things together. In the movie, almost everything of import is revealed at the end which leaves the audience almost no time to solve the mystery themselves. This is a very difficult pace to keep in a movie, but at the end of it I didn't have the feeling of satisfaction. Unfortunately, this is the very foundation of a mystery movie and so it counts heavily against it.