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Murder on the Orient Express Review

Posted by David Inman on 11th Nov 2017

Blandly Entertaining

Murder on the Orient Express

If you have been listening to our Nerdkungfu podcast Joren and I have been talking a lot about Movie Pass and if it's worth while.  I recently got my card and opted to debut it with Murder on the Orient Express, the latest Michael Green thing based on the classic Agatha Christie novel.

With a meh-tastic 58% on Rotten Tomatoes I didn't really expect it to blow my socks off and for the most part it met that expectation.  It was entertaining and the main character Hercule Peroit (Kenneth Branagh-Valkyrie, Henry V, Dunkirk) was as engaging as one would expect from a classic character of Western Literature.  The problem really was the whole movie that was building up to a crescendo that never manifested itself.  The denouement was about as exciting as a tepid board meeting and I definitely left the theater feeling a little unfulfilled.  

Murder on the Orient Express

One of the main things that kept this film from being just another crappy remake (first film was released in 1974) on the nostalgia death march that Hollywood seems committed to is the cast is pretty epic.  Johnny Depp, Willem Dafoe, Daisy Ridley, Penelope Cruz, Michelle Pfeiffer, Judi Dench, Dan Fogler, and a grip of talented up and comers means you couldn't throw a dinner roll without hitting a A- or B+ actor.  With all that talent just dripping off the screen it's hard to find a bad performance.  Everyone seemed to be taking it seriously and the pressure from being surrounded by such talent seems to motivate all the actors into at worst a solid performance.

Murder on the Orient Express

At first I was afraid that the character of Hercule Peroit might be ridiculously over the top like the the Robert Downey Jr version of Sherlock Holmes.  That was definitely the direction they were headed in the introductory scene but they managed to make him human and foible enough to be engaging.  He managed to ascribe something of an arc although you didn't really see it until the final credits.  There were so many other characters that none of them could really distinguish themselves but if you look at them as a whole amalgam (as, indeed, the Agatha Christie novel did) they work like a colony of ants could be said to have a personality.  

Murder on the Orient Express

As for the story it was an Agatha Christie plot.  Complex and convoluted with about a dozen opportunities for the villain to get away clean.  If it had just come from some Hollywood hack I might have bitched about the lack of action, romance, or literally anything but have to give props to the makers for trying to stay more true to the novel.  

Like I said entertaining but more in a Tuesday night Netflix sort of way, not a Friday night theater event.  If you can see it with your Movie Pass go for it otherwise wait for the comfort of your couch.  3 out of 5 Flux Capacitors.

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