Murder on the Orient Express (2017) Movie Review: Shit Goes Down on a Train, Y'all
Man, you ever loved something and had someone you loved involve themselves with that thing and then… Eh? Just falls short just a little? Not great as you hoped? Welcome to life, Sad Sally, you just became a little more adult.
Agatha Christie's classic story of a murder on a train plays out pretty straight in the 2017 Kenneth Branagh adaptation. There's a train, period appropriate clothing, actors acting their assess off, all that stuff. Sure, they threw in some sex and violence because we're different today and that's fine. Nothing much changed there.
Just a little problem… Poirot. Not Branagh's performance. Dude acts the shit out of everything. He was even great in Wild Wild West and that's a giant pile of poo. His Poirot, however, is off. Here, the character is played like TV's Monk with a dead wife and random order problems. In the books, he's more like TV's House with being an asshole who happens to be smart. It changes a lot of things and I just can't get over it.
Still, though, this was a fun night out. The acting really is great. I mean, I really wanted to kill Johnny Depp and root for Daisy Ridley as a hero. That's never happened before. Neither of them.