Murder on the Orient Express review
I went to see Murder on the Orient Express on Wednesday night. I can’t recommend it wholeheartedly, as it fell slightly below my expectations. For context, I read a pile of Christies in my teenage years or thereabouts, and probably MotOE too, but I don’t remember. I’ve dipped in and out of Miss Marple (played by Joan Hickson) and Poirot (played by David Suchet) adaptations, and, as reviewed here and here, the recent BBC Christmas specials.
I’d have preferred this film if it had been played a little straighter. I was reminded of Guy Ritchie’s Shelock Holmes movies - it’s not as extreme a reboot, Branagh’s style is more getting loads of actors together in stunning locations, anyway. But they made Poirot have some form of OCD (okay, it’s an interpretation), a lost love (surely an invention) and into a form of modern action superhero (there are fisticuffs that a RETIRED BELGIAN POLICE OFFICER shouldn’t be able to manage, even if he’s got such amazing little grey cells that he’s a precog and he wields his cane like it’s a super duper weapon/tool). It was too much.
It looks sumptuous: the shots of the middle east, the train on its journey and the avalanche that leaves said train precariously stuck on a wooden bridge on a mountainside. It’s a bit plummy and posed, which I was expecting, and occasionally played for laughs, and a bit too self-indulgent (Branagh’s Poirot, the moustache and, for me, the music). Pfeiffer is good (yay! Michelle Pfeiffer), Daisy Ridley made me think of a young Keira Knightley in a good way - she played an intelligent character well, although the more we learned about Mary, the more I thought they should have cast an older actress. But as I’ve never seen her act before, it left a positive impression. Johnny Depp is not irritating, in the main. Leslie Odom Jr’s accent wobbled under stress (but I loved the fact that someone who was on Person of Interest was in this film alongside award botherers and Olaf the Snowman). Judi Dench and Olivia Colman basically had cameos, oh, and I liked Tom Bateman, even if his character was inconsistently written.
THE NEXT PARAGRAPH IS THE SPOILER EXPRESS
I think the plot held water. I never try very hard to guess whodunit with Christie. I don’t remember if the solution was the same as in the book - here, they all did it, which led to a lot of existential angst and crisis of conscience for Poirot WHICH I DID NOT LIKE. The victim’s guilt in a horrid crime that was told in flashback and had permeated all these people’s lives - well, it was told in flashback in broad strokes and then further details were gradually relieved, and I wasn’t quite invested enough in the fact that Poirot had only learned of it too late to help the Armstrongs. So, I was basically going ‘oh, that’s a coincidence’ as the first few connections to a case I didn’t care about emerged.
It ends with a sequel bait about Death on the Nile. While I’m sure Branagh could get an equally starry cast, who knows if the box office will be sufficient to let him? The cinema was full at a reasonable hour on a midweek night, but will that hold up? As for me, I was thinking that I would love Emma Thompson to start working on a Miss Marple adaptation (she’s too young to play her now, but maybe in a few decades or leave it to someone else and play a murderess), and stick to what worked with Christie. That’s probably not what Branagh wanted me to come out of the film thinking.
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/301964.html.
I’d have preferred this film if it had been played a little straighter. I was reminded of Guy Ritchie’s Shelock Holmes movies - it’s not as extreme a reboot, Branagh’s style is more getting loads of actors together in stunning locations, anyway. But they made Poirot have some form of OCD (okay, it’s an interpretation), a lost love (surely an invention) and into a form of modern action superhero (there are fisticuffs that a RETIRED BELGIAN POLICE OFFICER shouldn’t be able to manage, even if he’s got such amazing little grey cells that he’s a precog and he wields his cane like it’s a super duper weapon/tool). It was too much.
It looks sumptuous: the shots of the middle east, the train on its journey and the avalanche that leaves said train precariously stuck on a wooden bridge on a mountainside. It’s a bit plummy and posed, which I was expecting, and occasionally played for laughs, and a bit too self-indulgent (Branagh’s Poirot, the moustache and, for me, the music). Pfeiffer is good (yay! Michelle Pfeiffer), Daisy Ridley made me think of a young Keira Knightley in a good way - she played an intelligent character well, although the more we learned about Mary, the more I thought they should have cast an older actress. But as I’ve never seen her act before, it left a positive impression. Johnny Depp is not irritating, in the main. Leslie Odom Jr’s accent wobbled under stress (but I loved the fact that someone who was on Person of Interest was in this film alongside award botherers and Olaf the Snowman). Judi Dench and Olivia Colman basically had cameos, oh, and I liked Tom Bateman, even if his character was inconsistently written.
THE NEXT PARAGRAPH IS THE SPOILER EXPRESS
I think the plot held water. I never try very hard to guess whodunit with Christie. I don’t remember if the solution was the same as in the book - here, they all did it, which led to a lot of existential angst and crisis of conscience for Poirot WHICH I DID NOT LIKE. The victim’s guilt in a horrid crime that was told in flashback and had permeated all these people’s lives - well, it was told in flashback in broad strokes and then further details were gradually relieved, and I wasn’t quite invested enough in the fact that Poirot had only learned of it too late to help the Armstrongs. So, I was basically going ‘oh, that’s a coincidence’ as the first few connections to a case I didn’t care about emerged.
It ends with a sequel bait about Death on the Nile. While I’m sure Branagh could get an equally starry cast, who knows if the box office will be sufficient to let him? The cinema was full at a reasonable hour on a midweek night, but will that hold up? As for me, I was thinking that I would love Emma Thompson to start working on a Miss Marple adaptation (she’s too young to play her now, but maybe in a few decades or leave it to someone else and play a murderess), and stick to what worked with Christie. That’s probably not what Branagh wanted me to come out of the film thinking.
This entry was originally posted at https://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/301964.html.