Bloated, stuffy. self-important and boring

Rating: 3/10 (13 March 2018)

World famous detective Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) takes a trip on the Orient Express and unexpectedly finds himself having to utilise all of his detective skills when one of the passengers on-board the train namely Edward Ratchett (Johnny Depp) is murdered shortly before the train is de-railed as the result of an avalanche.
Believe it or not, this is my first cinematic viewing of the famous Agatha Christie story (yes I know I must be some kind of philistine) so I don't have the luxury of being able to draw comparisons between other versions of the story - as I'm sure many of my contemporaries will be able to do. Therefore, my thoughts will remain solely confined to Branagh's offering....
And oh dear what a disappointment I found this to be... The story begins promisingly and offers a gentle playfulness that I hoped would be a running theme throughout the film. However, once Poirot gets on-board the train Branagh seems to change tack and fills the film with many stuffy and bloated exchanges between the cast members which I suppose are there to advance the story, but these exchanges are frequently dull and uninteresting.
What mystery there is here (which to someone like me who knew nothing of the story was a mystery) was unfolded in the most tedious and boring of manners... in fact when the big reveal arrived I was long past caring. Many of the cast looked lost and seemed to wonder what the hell they were doing in this film... Branagh stuffs the film with an impressive cast, but wastes a lot of them by giving them next to nothing to do.
I think what makes this film worse is the fact that it feels a little over-stuffed and self-important - it felt to me like Branagh was more in love with the production of the film than the story and I never once felt engaged in what should have been a fairly involving murder-mystery.
Don't be fooled by the impressive cast or the allure of what you may assume to be a good murder-mystery film. This offering of Murder on the Orient Express is crap and is best avoided.