MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (2017)

While unlikely to match TEN LITTLE INDIANS in Agatha Christie adaptation supremacy, this full-rigged iteration of her train-set whodunit must be the fourth or fifth try.  The first of a series for actor/director Kenneth Branagh’s to play eccentric Belgium detective Hercules Poirot, two followed (DEATH ON THE NILE/’22; A HAUNTING IN VENICE/’23), each doing a mere third the business.  (neither seen here)  A first try at watching never got past Branagh’s whopper of a moustache (Yikes!), nor beyond the pointless over-produced Jerusalem prologue.  But knowing what was coming got us over the hump and into Christie’s interlaced murder puzzle; helped by the generally strong cast.  Unlike the far more sophisticated Sidney Lumet all-star version of 1974, Branagh’s grows progressively dark, even serious.  With a flattened color palette on interiors to set a serious mood while also adding action, unconvincing CGI spectacle, melodrama and his usual disruptive, showy camera moves & angles.  It also replaces the earlier film’s line-up of delectable one-on-one post-murder interviews (they’re like vaudeville turns for the cast to out do each other) with splintered questioning of suspects after vicious businessman Johnny Depp is murdered in his compartment.  It still works, Christie almost always does, but you’re often settling for mild little ‘in’ jokes from the cast.  Michelle Pfeiffer channeling a bit of Lauren Bacall; Josh Gad finding his inner Jack Weston for a vocal model.  Then Branagh lectures us on morality in the modern world for an ending.  Does Branagh really think absence of fun equals serious?

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  The obvious choice is 1974's MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS.  But which to watch first?  You only get one shot at not knowing whodunit.    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/09/murder-on-orient-express-1974.html