Murder on the Orient Express

2017 • 113 minutes

About this movie

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.

Ratings and reviews

Really fond of Kenneth Branagh (Directing and Acting) but this film does not work. His over acting in it feels somewhat like a send up of the main character. I was looking forward to this movie for some time. I hate to be so negative as I love movies but this film is terrible. Get a bottle of wine from the store and cook your wife a meal. Then tell her how much you love her over the candle light. Now that might be an interesting and worthwhile evening, but not an evening watching this drivel ... my wife nearly wanted a trial separation after it.

I was so sure I would love this that I bought the darn thing...big mistake. If you are a fan of any of the actors besides Branagh, then save your money and just watch the trailers as I reckon they are collectively the only screen time anyone else got. The star studded names this film boasts are little more than clickbait for a Branagh ego led monologue interrupted by occasional cameos. Not to mention taking a famously cerebral detective (whose little grey cells did all the work to the extent that he could solve a crime whilst confined to his armchair) and turning him into some pathetic action hero wannabe with no morals. Branagh's idea of conveying the inner turmoil Poirot struggles with when faced with an impossible moral dilema, is to shout. If you have never read or seen any Christie works then you might be alright with this dross, but I suspect you will still be bored. Try watching David Suchet's version instead, it is soooo wonderful that I will watch it again and again. Maybe this is a case of do not try to direct something in which you have the starring (read, ONLY) role.

Those big all-star cast extravagances of the 70s and 80s were dire, hugely expensive projects that pandered to the egos of the actors and self indulgences of the directors and producers. Branagh, a frustrated Lawrence Olivier wannabe, must have loved them because here he is, raising the metaphorical titanic once again, with his own massive ego hamm(er)ing the whole thing back to hell. And there's a sequel coming, Death on the Nile, which is enough of a cringefest to kill cinema for good.