Garbage - review with spoilers

Rating: 5/10 (12 November 2017)

If you want to see Murder on the Orient Express, check out the 1974 version starring Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot. It is a wonderful movie, very close to the book. And guess what.... spoilers...
In this movie...Hercule Poirot does not get attacked by *any* of the suspects, still less shot by one of them who also confesses to the murder.
Apparently Brannagh thought modern day audiences couldn't sit through a murder mystery without 3 fist fights - and a shooting.
Then of course there's the political correctness. It's set in the right time period, the 1930s, but the doctor who has nothing to do with the crime has been morphed with Arbuthnot, one of the killers - and is now black.
I suppose that's okay, if it's true that one black man per medical class is allowed in, in 1930s England...but it's just dumb - and the fact that he actually shoots Poirot - when no matter who he may be, there's no evidence against him or the white woman he's in love with - is just stupid.
Then there's the most egregious bit - the opening where an Iman, a Rabbi and a Priest are accused of stealing a valuable relic at the Wailing Wall where thousands of people of different ethnicities are waiting. And of course it isn't one of these three religious people - no, it's the head of the British police who steals it in order to foment discontent and cement British rule, apparently. Stupid stupid stupid.
Then there's the fact that Poirot has been turned into Mr. Monk. He steps into a pile of dung with one foot. Poirot is a neat freak, and a clean freak, not a 'balance' freak. There is no way in hell he'd step into the dung with his *other* foot, to balance everything out. Just stupid.
The actors do excellent jobs with what they're given. Unfortunately what they're given is awful. I give 5 stars for the performances, and that's it.