Murder on the Orient Express (2017)
Country: MAL/US
Technical: col/2.35:1 114m
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Daisy Ridley, Tom Bateman, Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench, Olivia Colman, Willem Dafoe, Johnny Depp, Derek Jacobi, Michelle Pfeiffer
Synopsis:
Poirot is recalled from the Levant mid-vacation by the Foreign Office and boards the Orient Express at Istanbul thanks to a favour from an old friend, the train's manager. However, among the motley assortment of characters sharing First Class with him is a man ripe for assassination, and fate duly obliges.
Review:
One of Agatha Christie's most characteristic, and most often filmed, stories here gets the Branagh treatment, with overblown mise-en-scène (though the CGI scenic shots are very impressive) and a theatrical disregard for fine detail. The resort to avalanche to halt the train is as unnecessary as it is unconvincingly mounted, the heavy locomotive derailed while the lighter carriages remain perched aloft on a frail-looking bridge, while the investigation into a puzzlingly abundant set of clues is kept muted pending a suitably 'rabbit-out-of-hat' Last Supper finale. The less said about Branagh's Belgian accent the better.
Country: MAL/US
Technical: col/2.35:1 114m
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Daisy Ridley, Tom Bateman, Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench, Olivia Colman, Willem Dafoe, Johnny Depp, Derek Jacobi, Michelle Pfeiffer
Synopsis:
Poirot is recalled from the Levant mid-vacation by the Foreign Office and boards the Orient Express at Istanbul thanks to a favour from an old friend, the train's manager. However, among the motley assortment of characters sharing First Class with him is a man ripe for assassination, and fate duly obliges.
Review:
One of Agatha Christie's most characteristic, and most often filmed, stories here gets the Branagh treatment, with overblown mise-en-scène (though the CGI scenic shots are very impressive) and a theatrical disregard for fine detail. The resort to avalanche to halt the train is as unnecessary as it is unconvincingly mounted, the heavy locomotive derailed while the lighter carriages remain perched aloft on a frail-looking bridge, while the investigation into a puzzlingly abundant set of clues is kept muted pending a suitably 'rabbit-out-of-hat' Last Supper finale. The less said about Branagh's Belgian accent the better.
Country: MAL/US
Technical: col/2.35:1 114m
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Daisy Ridley, Tom Bateman, Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench, Olivia Colman, Willem Dafoe, Johnny Depp, Derek Jacobi, Michelle Pfeiffer
Synopsis:
Poirot is recalled from the Levant mid-vacation by the Foreign Office and boards the Orient Express at Istanbul thanks to a favour from an old friend, the train's manager. However, among the motley assortment of characters sharing First Class with him is a man ripe for assassination, and fate duly obliges.
Review:
One of Agatha Christie's most characteristic, and most often filmed, stories here gets the Branagh treatment, with overblown mise-en-scène (though the CGI scenic shots are very impressive) and a theatrical disregard for fine detail. The resort to avalanche to halt the train is as unnecessary as it is unconvincingly mounted, the heavy locomotive derailed while the lighter carriages remain perched aloft on a frail-looking bridge, while the investigation into a puzzlingly abundant set of clues is kept muted pending a suitably 'rabbit-out-of-hat' Last Supper finale. The less said about Branagh's Belgian accent the better.