Review of Murder on the Orient Express (2017) by Tony1984 — 27 Jan 2018

The initial set up on the Orient Express is Hollywood at its best, just the right amount of glamour, tension and anticipation. The costume, location and props departments were on top of their game. The camera work pulls out all the stops too, We get every camera shot you could imagine, tracking shots, crane shots, side angled, colour filtered, you name it Orient had it. The express chugs along nicely until we got to the trestle bridge and from here on its weak and becomes just an average flick. The original 1974 movie picked up Oscars but no fear of that here. The contemporary PC agenda which has seeped into the movie industry is dolloped in spades here. It detracts and grates serving only to annoy the viewer. There are also too many star names with too little for each of them to do. Lesser well known names would have worked better. Poirot is suppose to be fastidious and odd. Branagh makes him cool and in the centre of the action all the time. Fans of Agatha Christie will not be happy with that. The logical exposition isn't highlighted. The pleasure of solving an unsolvable case by gradually peeling back the layers isn't here. Rather just emotion and cheesiness. The cat is let out the bag too early and with a thud. We then do a bit of moral wrestling. And Poirot bows to moral ambiguity.

Its entertaining but not A standard. Not the last we'll see either.