Murder on the Orient Express (2017)
59% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 163 reviews)
Runtime: 114 minutes
Directed by: Kenneth Branagh
Starring: An all-star cast
From: 20th Century Fox
This is not better than the 1974 version, although as I heard people say this beforehand, I was not disappointed when this was only "fine". I give some thoughts below:
Yes, Wednesday night I saw the 1974 Orient Express as preparation for seeing this brand new version of the Agatha Christie story. It hasn't had the most rave of reviews so my expectations were lowered, which was good. This was fine and does seem like "an old-timey film" but it is not the Sidney Lumet version. The general plot is the same, but there were some changes compared to the earlier film and judging by a review I heard, the Hercule Poirot seen here is not the classic literary character. While watching the film I wondered if he was supposed to have Asperger's or not; to borrow a phrase, think Tony Shaloub's Monk TV character and that's the Poirot in this movie. If you love the character, you might be quite aggravated at this interpretation.
I won't go into detail on the other changes as it's spoilers, except that more time was spent outside the train than I expected. I am not sure if those changes were needed, or even how many of them worked. At least the film has nice cinematography and the talented cast does well with what they're given. I just preferred how the 70's movie did things instead; that had more sleuthing and finding clues, while this was more explaining things and at times you don't see how Hercule discovered some clues so it's like he pulled it right out of his ass.
Oh, and I know people weren't happy Johnny Depp was in this film, despite the character's ultimate fate. I imagine some would like a few recently exposed (oh wait, bad choice of words, sorry) problematic actors to be Ratchett instead... and be stabbed multiple times in real life.
No comments:
Post a Comment