Murder on the Orient Express

I have not seen the other adaptations, nor have I read the original work, so I will review this film solely based on how it executes the classic story on its own. A further note: if you are on the fence of seeing this film, do not watch the trailers. Whoever was behind the marketing, they were trying to appeal to young audiences with pop music and loud moments. This movie is slow, serious, and sophisticated.

The beginning starts with light humor towards the detective’s approach to his life, and when the conflict begins to rise, it does so very slowly. I am fine with a slow building plot, but when the third act has more revelations in one minute than the first two acts, I begin to doubt whether Detective Poirot is an excellent guesser, or a psychic that reads minds. In one scene he pulls out facts from thin air with no evidence to support his claims, and boom, it is the truth. The end is very well done and unconventional to other mysteries, but how the story got there needed to jump past logic and reason. Some might also point out that the tone is inconsistent. It is, but on purpose. The detective is a heart-felt, old man that spends his time traveling the world and witnessing wild scenarios for him to solve. When the conflict emerges, the tone shifts into the serious. Not bleak, or depressing, like the common Oscar film, nor does it stray into high action with quick jokes and one liners like the common block buster. This film is solidly in the middle. The joy literally drains from the story as the mystery grows and grows, and the detective becomes aware of his inability to see the truth. That aspect was one of my favorite parts, witnessing a man, with decades of experience, step down from his pedestal to realize his view of the world is not so correct.

The centralized characters were very well done. When they look back into their past and the truth unveils itself, there is true passion and emotion, none of the actors just read the lines on the script, and their performances only made the clever screenwriting that much better. Directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh, this film, not surprisingly, has the spotlight shine right on his awesome mustache. A quick witted and funny detective trapped on a train with a dozen of unique characters, and several of them are pushed to the background to give more space for Branagh to do his work. This is not a terrible flaw, the detective is very enjoyable, but some of the suspects pop up out of nowhere. There was a particular scene where two passengers are being interviewed and I had no idea they were even on the train. Other characters were mainly enjoyable from the performances of their actors; I would not have cared about Willem Dafoe’s character if Willem Dafoe did not play him.

The setting is not as claustrophobic as other films, but the execution of the limited space is far more compelling than the open trash fields of Thor: Ragnarok. There is a large attention to detail– it is a who-done-it– which piles up on itself until the end when everything comes crashing down. The twists and turns are the same as the original novel, I believe, but as a stranger to the story it was very refreshing and unexpected.

Many critics are bashing this film for being a pointless, cash-grabbing remake, but personally, as I have not seen the previous adaptations, I believe this film has the right to stand on its own. The only flaws that are worth mentioning are the lack of focus towards some characters, and the inconsistent speed of revelations. Sure, this remake might not be necessary, but if the 1974 film were never made then the ratings for this version would be much higher. Other than that, it was beautifully shot and gives a unique hero in the sea of “teen-dramas” and “superhero-blockbusters”: an old man with a cane.

Story Rating: 8/10

Character Rating: 8/10