Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

[Missourian]

I had high hopes for this one. I love Agatha Christie books and I am also huge Kenneth Branagh fan...especially Hamlet and Othello, but also I enjoyed Thor 1, which he directed...I've never seen him in a movie were I didn't appreciate his performance. And Murder on the Orient Express was no exception. Branagh made a perfect Hercules Poirot. But the movie just wasn't that great, even though it is Kenneth Branagh directed. It drags along...Johnny Depp phones in a performance...but the ending is well done.

I give it a 2.5 out of 5...Branagh's performance keeps it entertaining enough that it keeps your attention to the end.

IMHO, if you aren't a big Branagh fan, wait for this one to hit the local library and check it out for free.

 

[shockedcanadian]

I had high hopes for this one. I love Agatha Christie books and I am also huge Kenneth Branagh fan...especially Hamlet and Othello, but also I enjoyed Thor 1, which he directed...I've never seen him in a movie were I didn't appreciate his performance. And Murder on the Orient Express was no exception. Branagh made a perfect Hercules Poirot. But the movie just wasn't that great, even though it is Kenneth Branagh directed. It drags along...Johnny Depp phones in a performance...but the ending is well done.

I give it a 2.5 out of 5...Branagh's performance keeps it entertaining enough that it keeps your attention to the end.

IMHO, if you aren't a big Branagh fan, wait for this one to hit the local library and check it out for free.

Agatha Christie is one of our better Canadian asset in the arts. That being state I still think she is somewhat overrated, than again, so is Stephen King. I loved the movie Ten Little Indians, even the remakes were pretty good. Of course, Murder on the Orient Express is a classic.

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Missourian]

I loved the movie Ten Little Indians, even the remakes were pretty good.

My favorite Christie book...but when I read it, it was retitled "And then there was one".

 

[Weatherman2020]

I had high hopes for this one. I love Agatha Christie books and I am also huge Kenneth Branagh fan...especially Hamlet and Othello, but also I enjoyed Thor 1, which he directed...I've never seen him in a movie were I didn't appreciate his performance. And Murder on the Orient Express was no exception. Branagh made a perfect Hercules Poirot. But the movie just wasn't that great, even though it is Kenneth Branagh directed. It drags along...Johnny Depp phones in a performance...but the ending is well done.

I give it a 2.5 out of 5...Branagh's performance keeps it entertaining enough that it keeps your attention to the end.

IMHO, if you aren't a big Branagh fan, wait for this one to hit the local library and check it out for free.

No one can beat David Suchet.

 

[Marion Morrison]

So Hollywood still has no new ideas, aye?

 

[Billy_Kinetta]

Branagh is a bit like Orson Welles. Inconsistent.

Henry V blew everyone away, but he's been very choppy ever since.

 

[Remodeling Maidiac]

Terrible movie imo. I never saw the classic but this shit was predictable & lame

 

[Circe]

I had high hopes for this one. I love Agatha Christie books and I am also huge Kenneth Branagh fan...especially Hamlet and Othello, but also I enjoyed Thor 1, which he directed...I've never seen him in a movie were I didn't appreciate his performance. And Murder on the Orient Express was no exception. Branagh made a perfect Hercules Poirot. But the movie just wasn't that great, even though it is Kenneth Branagh directed. It drags along...Johnny Depp phones in a performance...but the ending is well done.

I give it a 2.5 out of 5...Branagh's performance keeps it entertaining enough that it keeps your attention to the end.

IMHO, if you aren't a big Branagh fan, wait for this one to hit the local library and check it out for free.

Blech, Branach ---- but we saw it last night because, you know, it was Agatha Christie. Oh, it was okay, just okay, good novel camera angles, and I like the stark snow. And omigod, Michelle Pfeiffer in the Lauren Bacall role!! Wonderful. Derek Jacobi was great, too, as ever. I can't see why you said Johnny Depp phoned it in: I thought his was a very strong performance. One of the best, if truncated by events (he was the murder victim).

Not enough foreshadowing, Himself said --- because how in the world did Poirot KNOW all that?? Good point. So we're going to see the earlier (Lauren Bacall) version and see if they did better with the clues. And then I'll reread it for the oomph time. Because that's an issue -- you can't make up the conclusion out of absolutely nothing, and that did seem to be what they did. Branach, he's so vain. He probably thinks this movie is about him.

The point of the whole story, however, is the wildly outrageous thing Christie did. She switched the entire formula from everyone gathering in the library to be sorted out, slowly, many innocents from the one guilty ------------------------------- to exactly the opposite.

She's so bad. They wanted to hang her for Roger Ackroyd, where the narrator was the murderer -- not kidding, they drew up a list of things mystery writers had to put in to be fair after that. This really happened. It is said that Christie posted that list on her typewriter and broke one rule right after the other till she broke them all.

I love it.

 

[Circe]

Branagh is a bit like Orson Welles. Inconsistent.

Henry V blew everyone away, but he's been very choppy ever since.

Yes. Totally agree. "A little bit of Harry in the night"!! Willie -- how could you. But it was great, Henry V. Then he got into directing and oh, god help us, DIVERSITY. He was quite a good Benedict with his then-wife, Emma Thompson: I never expect to see a better or more passionate staging of that, and he got away with a black as the half brother to the Prince because, because....well, the woman not his wife COULD have been black. Okay, fine, whatever. If it's plausible, fine.

But then he did that disastrous As You Like It set in Japan with black men, white women, no orientals to speak of, what an abortion of Shakespeare!! I am certain William Shakespeare -- who was really up on race, see Othello and Merchant -- would have hated it.

And then there was that 4.5 hour Hamlet. Mel Gibson did SO much better as Hamlet than Branagh. And shorter, too.

Okay, I'm not a fan of Branagh.

 

[Circe]

I loved the movie Ten Little Indians, even the remakes were pretty good.

My favorite Christie book...but when I read it, it was retitled "And then there was one".

It has had several titles. I suppose you know the first one, which didn't go over well in the U.S. even back then. They've diluted it and diluted it --- the latest movie had Ten Little Sailors that kept breaking as each person was murdered. [Sigh]

And Then There Were None is a good title and where it will stick, I think.