Not a Poirot we wanted or even needed, but a brief moment of entertainment

Rating: 5/10 (3 March 2018)

This film isn't awful. It just terribly disappointing. It had lots of potential, the actors were doing fine, the scenery is pretty and there was obviously lots of money put into the project.
Branagh's take on the character of Poirot isn't that bad. His accent needs some work and the fact that Poirot is vain and as meticulous with his appearance as with everything else, should have been noted. Poirot dyes his hair dark and has those dandy moustaches, that old Western movie moustache of his doesn't really fit the character. Apart from this, Branagh's Poirot is NOT bad. If you look back at Peter Ustinov's Poirot in Death on the Nile from 1978 you see that Branagh's Poirot is more true to the books.
Death on the Nile from 1978 was well-made and well-written, though. Murder on the Orient Express is messy, script, cinematography and all! The landscapes and surroundings are oftentimes beautiful, and some of the shots are really great. However, very often it feels like the director of photography, or whoever, didn't really know how to make the shot or when to cut. Sometimes a shot starts out beautifully and leads us in a grandiose way just to break off and end in some dubious jump cut. It's so anticlimactic.
In the very beginning, Poirot's quirky personality gets pushed down our throats - with commentary! You really don't have to be TOLD why he does things the way he does, just show it. That's one of the benefits of this new hot thing called Moving Pictures, you can give the audience a chance to watch, think, understand, instead of just telling it to them as if they were unintelligent children. It's a detective story, if there's no mystery, there's no point.
While the original detective story is dark and chilly as well as intelligent and comedic, this take on Murder on the Orient Express is far less about uncovering the mystery of the murder and the mystery of human nature, and more about an ensemble cast in an adventure flick, a bit like Indiana Jones. Branagh's Poirot is very nimble for being an old man.
Then there are the things that are just plain stupid. The film hints at the possibility of a sequel, a death has occurred on the Nile, but that's ludicrous, since Poirot was present while that death occurred in Death on the Nile, not snowed in in Yugoslavia. And while I accept the artistic freedom when making the Swedish character Greta Ohlsson a Spanish subject, why naming her Pilar Estravados, as is the name of one of the major characters in the book "Poirot's Christmas"? Are these supposed to be clever nods to Christie fans? Because as a fan, I just find them idiotic and unnecessary.
Though I wouldn't mind seeing Branagh reprise his role as Hercules Poirot, some adjustments should be made, but most of all: take care when adapting the stories! Agatha Christie wrote simple, fun and clever books, stick to that. Don't try to put in old flames of Poirot's in dusty picture frames and other pointless things into the film just because you can. If you want to change something for artistic purposes, be sure that you know what and how to do it. The British Poirot series have made countless changes during the series run from 1989-2014. That's right. Watch that if you haven't already.