Review of Murder on the Orient Express (2017) by Hazard N — 21 Mar 2018

I'm so familiar with this story that I could recite it, clue by clue and suspect by suspect, by heart. Sidney Lumet's 1974 version is elegant and stately, and the closest you'll get to a faithful adaptation of Christie's famous tale - although the made-for-tv version starring David Suchet as Poirot is an excellent variation on it, too, and is certainly darker while trying to strive for some depth beyond its detection elements.

Going into Branagh's version, I expected to be disappointed or affronted or horrified - possibly all three. I wasn't. While Branagh goes to some length to build up Poirot as a sort of egocentric superdetective - his is certainly the most energetic and mobile Poirot we've ever been given - the passengers on the Calais Coach (usually reserved for the "star turns") are all rather lackluster, despite their collective acting CVs.

Judi Dench is utterly wasted in a role that Wendy Hiller ate up with relish back in '74, for instance. Branagh - wearing his director hat - does whatever he can to get us out of the snowbound train whenever he can - strolling on top, climbing up and down a trestle, an interrogation in the snow, and even a visually awkward final summation set up in a tunnel like a picnic version of The Last Supper - perhaps assuming audiences will find a murder mystery confined to immobile train coaches tedious.

It's because of this suggested cynical distrust (mistrust?) of contemporary audiences that the florid clueing of Christie's original tale is woefully paired down and given over to poorly motivated gunfire in the baggage car.

And yet - after saying all this - I found the film more than watchable, and entertaining enough. Diminished attention spans might or might not cotton to the rewarding complexities of the puzzle plots of the Golden Age of Detection, and if that's the case, why continue to resurrect Christie's plots? Well, many of her novels contain enough exotica to warrant splashy visual remakes like this.

..but god help us when they start to superdetective Miss Marple.