As you’d expect from a billion dollar industry,
Hollywood likes to play it safe. Christmas movies at Christmas, blockbusters
during the Northern Hemisphere’s summer, romantic movies in February, a horror
movie for Halloween. When they do experiment, it’s usually in the form of
reviving a genre that’s fallen out of favour: do audiences secretly crave the
return of the western? Occasionally these test firings lead to a fully-fledged
revival – smart science fiction, usually a rarity at best, has been turning up once a year every year since the success of Gravity – but more often even when they do work they’re seen as a
once-off (remember The Lincoln Lawyer?).
So the big mystery here is: will Murder
on the Orient Express see a revival of the big screen murder mystery?
It’s the 1930s, and after solving a high profile case
in Palestine famous detective Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh, who also
directs) – who here seems to operate largely as an agent of the British
military – is requested to return to the UK ASAP, which means a last minute
seat on the Orient Express. Surrounded by a mix of colourful characters, one
stands out: shady US art dealer Edward Ratchett (Johnny Depp), who seems
concerned his dubious past is about to catch up with him. The train is stranded
in the mountains due to an avalanche, Ratchett is found stabbed to death in his
room, and Poriot has a new case to solve – one in which it seems everyone has
something to hide.
In today’s multi-media landscape, genres rarely die –
they just move to another platform. The murder mystery has been stretching out
comfortably on television for the last few decades, so it’s hardly surprising
to modern eyes this adaptation (which comes in at under two hours) seems a
little rushed, especially with a dozen or so suspects to be dealt with. The
mystery itself is skimmed over, perhaps because it’s assumed many viewers
already know how it’ll all end: the 1974 adaptation was a huge hit and the
story is one of Agatha Christie’s more gimmicky ones (and it doesn’t exactly
play fair with those who like to solve the mystery based on all the clues
provided), so downplaying that side of things isn’t a fatal flaw.
Branagh instead focuses on charm, starting with his
own performance. While there are a few hints at a deeper backstory (a photo of
a lost loved one, comments about the curse of always seeing the flaws in the
world around him), his Poirot is largely a chipper, charismatic character who’s
played big enough to be fun without completely overwhelming the film. As far as
the rest of the cast goes, the hammier the performance the better, which puts Leslie
Odom Jr. and Daisy Ridley at a disadvantage despite getting a hefty slice of
screen time. Judi Dench, Willem Dafoe and Penelope Cruz go hell for leather in
their relatively brief on screen moments, but it’s Michelle Pfeiffer who steals
the show; with this and her work in Mother!,
she’s definitely on the comeback trail.
This is never anything more or less than solidly entertaining, an
enjoyable time-waster of a film that’s always nice to look at with a story that
requires zero effort to follow (after all, it’s about a man constantly
explaining things to everyone around him), a polished mood that moves from the
slightly grim to the slightly quirky with nary a bump or rattle, and a
conclusion that carries no weight whatsoever. Unless you’re still emotionally
involved in the 90 year-old kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, a brutal real-life
crime Christie shamelessly used as backstory. Maybe at the time a few readers thought
“too soon”; now it’s as bloodless and remote as everything else here.
- Anthony Morris
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