Murder on the Orient Express
Published March 2, 2018
Film info
- Title Murder on the Orient Express
- Director Kenneth Branagh
- Year 2017
- Run time 1hr 54m
- Genres Crime, Drama, Mystery
- Tagline Everyone is a suspect
Kenneth Branagh directs and leads an all-star cast, including Johnny Depp, Penélope Cruz, Willem Dafoe and Judi Dench, in this stylish, suspenseful and thrilling mystery based on the best-selling novel by Agatha Christie. Everyone’s a suspect when a murder is committed on a lavish train ride, and a brilliant detective must race against time to solve the puzzle before the killer strikes again.
Live blog
| Time | Comment |
|---|---|
| 3:09 | “Allons-y!” Yay! |
| 5:41 | It is a heck of a moustache, crazy but impressive. |
| 8:03 | “It makes most of life unbearable but it is useful in the detection of crime.” Aww, bless Poirot. |
| 13:55 | “Please don’t speak, you make it worse.” |
| 14:20 | So fun with all the famous faces. |
| 18:34 | “I am equally disappointed in you.” |
| 25:29 | The bloody dogs are annoying already. |
| 31:50 | “I detect criminals, I do not protect them.” |
| 36:17 | Scary place to leave a train. |
| 48:09 | Watching top down makes me a bit dizzy. |
| 51:06 | Emails may be annoying but it’s quicker than post! |
| 1:01:45 | A fracture of the soul. Like a Horcrux. |
| 1:08:15 | “It is full of the fudge!” |
| 1:08:15 | She a vampire, clearly. |
| 1:16:39 | “I like speaking to detectives, you never know what they’re going to ask you next.” |
| 1:24:15 | What are the chances that everyone on the train has a connection to this Armstrong crime? |
| 1:38:10 | “There was right, there was wrong. Now there is you.” |
| 1:41:59 | Some holiday for dear Hercule. |
Conclusions
I was quite looking forward to this one, mostly caught up in they hype of so many famous faces, but in the end I think it was a bit disappointing. It’s beautifully made and Kenneth Branagh actually does an impressive job in a role that has been made so famous by someone else. That moustache is crazy but about halfway through, you sort of forget about it.
The sheer number of characters means there isn’t really time to get to know any of them very well, and by the time you get towards the final third of the film, the coincidences are starting to stack up clearly and you start to realise where it’s all heading. I do find conclusions where [spoiler alert] it was all of them a bit of a cop-out but that’s the source material, and probably one of the first times that happened rather than the over-use of it in detective shows now.
Glossy and good, but not the brilliant film I was hoping it would be.
Rating: 3/5.
Rating: 3 / 5