If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It!

Rating: 6/10 (13 December 2017)

Director Kenneth Branagh's cinematic adaptation Agatha Christie's classic whodunit "Murder on the Orient Express" qualifies as lush, atmospheric, but sadly pretentious. Clearly, Branagh and "Blade Runner 2049" scenarist Michael Green don't subscribe to the adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." This big-screen remake doesn't surpass director Sidney Lumet's superior version from 1974 that c0-starred Sean Connery, Michael York, Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Richard Widmark, and Anthony Perkins. Branagh doesn't muster a cast the caliber of the Lumet version, and he wears out his welcome with a running time that clocks in mysteriously under two hours. The Lumet version was far longer, but it rolls back a lightning speed. Branagh and Green have maintained the same time period, but they have changed up some of the murder suspects. The austere British colonel that Connery portrayed has been replaced with an African-American doctor who is having an amorous relationship with a Caucasian lady. Unlike the Christie novel, the film doesn't have the train come to a stop because of too much snow on the tracks, but because the train has derailed. Furthermore, Branagh and Green have tacked on a prologue that is entirely dispensable. Honorable mention must go to Jim Clay and his production designs as well as the set decorators. If you have read the Christie novel, you will not be surprised at anything that happens, except for Hercule Poirot's OCD that enables him to ferret out the criminals. If you haven't see the Lumet version and you haven't read the novel, you may find the film rewarding. Nevertheless, Lumet's version tops Branagh's rendition.