One of the year’s absolute best! DATEWORTHY? YES!
This remake of the classic Agatha Christie mystery novel has sumptuous visuals, a magnificent score, a stellar cast and a plot that has a stunning twist ending. What’s not to love? See it in 70mm if you can! A rare treat.
On its surface, advance word on the new film reboot of Agatha Christie’s classic mystery “Murder on the Orient Express” made me cringe. As much as I hate the current cinema climate in which umpteen sequels are pumped out to mindless dreck like the “Transformers” series, this edition of “Murder” seemed to signal millions of dollars being poured out to tell a story we’ve all seen before, way too many times. 
Aside from the Christie novel, “Murder” had a predecessor in a 1974 film that scored major box office and garnered six Oscar nominations, including wins for Ingrid Bergman as Best Supporting Actress and a Best Actor trophy for Albert Finney as Poirot. It would seem wise to leave that classic untouched, but director Kenneth Branagh has stepped up to deliver a film that pairs vivid performances by an all-star cast with stunning imagery, and a magnificent score with a screenplay by Michael Green (“Logan”) that attains an emotional resonance far too often lacking in major-studio fare.
Best of all, this “Murder” has been shot with the option of being displayed in the full, now-rare glory of the 70mm format. The result is a dazzling work of art that is alternately fun to watch and hard to shake, the very definition of must-see filmmaking and worth every penny viewers pay at today’s excessive prices.
Go see this movie on a date, and you’ll have plenty of thrills, some good laughs, and a sense of travel and adventure. It’s just great.
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Branagh holds the screen magnetically with his lead performance as Inspector Hercule Poirot, a man whose ace deductive skills have made him famous across Europe. After an amusing Jerusalem-set opening sequence in which he reveals that it’s a corrupt police officer— rather than the priest, rabbi and imam who are about to be executed publicly— who committed a heinous crime, Poirot declares his need for a vacation.
While the inspector sports an impressive handlebar mustache and a showman’s panache, he is secretly saddened by the loss of his wife. A friend takes pity on his loneliness and offers him the chance to head to Istanbul and hop a luxury passenger train called the Orient Express for some rest and relaxation.
Poirot quickly notices a string of odd behavior and quirks from a dozen of his fellow passengers, including an actress who is suffering the pains of fading glory (Michelle Pfeiffer), a doctor with an attitude (Leslie Odom Jr.) and an uptight missionary (Penelope Cruz). He’s forced to deal with them head-on when the train is trapped by an avalanche while traveling through mountains, and especially when the train’s chief (Johnny Depp) is found stabbed to death in his cabin.
As Poirot tries to unravel the mystery of who killed the chief, he discovers that no one is exactly as they seem— including the victim himself. Trying to deduce the twisting motivations across so many fellow passengers leads to a delicious array of twists that pay off with a walloping surprise.
Certainly, some viewers may have seen the original film, but Branagh and Green manage to give this “Orient” an impressively deep moral sense. As the discovery of how the murder occurred is revealed, the lush score by Patrick Doyle (“Hamlet,” “Sense and Sensibility”) attains a tragic undertone that helps attain the rare feat of portraying even a righteously vengeful murder in a light that makes viewers feel every anguished moment of taking of a human life, no matter how evil.
Add in no noticeable foul language, sex or nudity, and the murder largely implied, and this is a film that most anyone can see, although the intelligence level required to follow its complex plotting and characters is at a smart level.
Haris Zambarloukos, who also brought Branagh’s film version of “Cinderella” to vibrant life, creates scenescapes here that look like Thomas Kincaid paintings come to life. The overall result is a masterpiece that deserves to win numerous Oscars this coming February as well.
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I’d like to add one point about how I rate films. There is clearly no real comparison between a movie like “Bad Moms Christmas” and one like “Murder” on an artistic level. But I judge each one by how well it achieved its goals and purpose: did it make the audience laugh if it was a comedy, move them if it was a drama, or keep them on the edge of their seats in a drama or thriller?
“Murder” and last week’s “Thor: Ragnarok” and “Bad Moms Christmas” all attain their goal at a terrific level and thus earn top-notch grades. Here’s hoping the trend continues.
