A competently made remake that no one asked for.

Rating: 6/10 (11 November 2017)

I have not been too kind on Hollywood remakes. Generally they take a film that was very successful and want to 'recreate it' for younger audiences, hoping that it would make even more money. However often these films are the remakes of brilliant originals and whilst these remakes can be very entertaining, they are still miles away from the quality of the original. Murder on the Orient Express is such a film. It has an amazing cast (like the original) which consists of great names such as Kenneth Branagh, Willem Dafoe, Johnny Depp, Judi Dench, Daisy Ridley, Michelle Pfeiffer, Penelope Cruz and Josh Gad. All of these actors give their everything, in particular Branagh who is amazing as the eccentric Hercule Poirot. He manages to recreate the character but also keep the traits that made him so memorable when the likes such as Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov played them. However the rest of the characterizations felt dull, I was uninterested in them plus I saw the original and knew how it ended. So even in that category the film failed to surprise me. What made the original film so good was that when Poirot was investigating it felt like that he was investigating real people. The characters were all flashed out well thanks to excellent writing. So when Poirot spots something odd, you as the viewer are ultimately challenged to re watch and check whether you can see what he sees. You were investigating with Poirot. In this adaptation the characters were so one dimensional that I honestly didn't care. I knew the ending of the original and so didn't care about the actual murder either. The film looks beautiful, it has awesome camera work and costume design. The actors do great and Branagh will no doubt catch Oscar buzz for his performance. I only recommend this film for audiences who have never read the Agatha Christie novel or seen the original film. This is because that way at least the murder remains interesting, if we know the conclusion the film loses much of this effect. The original had great characters that were three dimensional and felt real. There was re watch value, this film is a perfect Netflix watch. If you have never seen the original you will be entertained while it lasts but you are not encouraged to watch it again (at least I'm not).