I Watch Films: Murder On The Orient Express
Another film version of the classic Agatha Christie tale, another all star cast. This is all about effect. Everything is turned up to 10 at the start, with Branagh’s Poirot solving a case at the Western Wall in Jerusalem and as he explains the solution to the crowd, setting up the method of capturing the criminal*.
Poirot’s fussiness is (like everything else) turned up to 10; he is a great detective because he can always tell when something is out of place. And so the perfect service of the Orient Express is the relaxing holiday he needs. Though there is something out of place... [SPOILERS IT’S A MURDER].
Anyway, this looks good, sounds good, is well acted, has everything you ever wanted from a murder mystery on a train. Even the victim isn’t very sympathetic! (played by Johnny Depp). It’s major flaw is that it adds little to the genre of murder mysteries/period dramas/Agatha Christie adaptions/Murder on the Orient Express adaptions. Did we need this film at all?
Well, perhaps we did, a perfectly executed modern version of something old fashioned is refreshing when so many crime films are gritty and lurid tosh that will be forgotten next year.
Watch This: For a cool period murder mystery
Don’t Watch This: If murder mysteries are not your thing.
* There’s a good joke in which having met Captain Hastings, his companion in many adventures in the books and on TV, he tells him that they must never meet again.
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