Sunday 12 November 2017

Murder on the Orient Express (Kenneth Branagh, 2017)

Branagh's remake of Sidney Lumet's 1974 adaptation of the Agatha Christie whodunit relies heavily on its star cameos for its pulling power, even if it doesn't actually cram in as many as the original film: Branagh himself as Poirot, Johnny Depp, Judi Dench, Willem Dafoe, Penélope Cruz and Michelle Pfeiffer, just to list the biggest guns. Each suspect gets their five minutes in the spotlight and it's fun to see their turns, even if the production design is the biggest star: it's a sumptuously mounted film, from Istanbul to the snowy mountains of the Balkans, and the lavish air of the train itself. That is at once its appeal and the problem: it's heavy on the gloss and, in sticking so closely to the source material, presents no surprises, unlike some versions over the years of And Then There Were None, which have played around much more with both the setting and the plot to good effect. Nevertheless, it's a diverting ride and Branagh fills the shoes of the anally retentive master sleuth with ease and some nice comic touches too.

6/10

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