Expected Better!

Rating: 3/10 (19 March 2018)

Review:
I'm really in two minds about this movie, because it certainly looked great and the period was portrayed well but the storyline started to get on my nerves after a while. The whole "whodunnit" aspect seemed to go on forever, and all of the suspects had there own reasons to kill Edward Ratchett (Johnny Depp) because of his dodgy past, so Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) seemed to be going round in circles for most of the movie. You didn't really get to see Poirot's genius, because it was mostly based on interviews with the various suspects, so you didn't get to see him put together various clues like we usually do. On the plus side, the cast was great, and you get to see another side to Johnny Depp, who wasn't in the movie for that long but he did make a big impact. As for the plot, it wasn't anything different to the usual movies that have been adapted from this popular story, so I wasn't left feeling that it was anything amazing. I was also pretty disappointed with the whole outcome of the plot, mainly because it didn't take much detective work to find out that they were all lying, so from that point of view, it seemed like a total waste of time. Another main problem with the film, is that it was a bit too coincidental that every suspect that was in the posh part of the train, had a connection to the suspect, which didn't take a rocket scientist to work out, so that also made the outcome pretty poor. Anyway, I wasn't that impressed with this film, and I also wasn't that impressed with Branagh playing Poirot, so it has to get the thumbs down from me. Not that great!
Round-Up:
Although this movie made a decent profit at the box office, which was mostly based on the cast, I personally think that Kenneth Branagh wasn't the best choice to director and star in the lead. His version of Frankenstein was terrible, and I wasn't that impressed with Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit but he did kick off the Thor franchise pretty well and Cinderella was also watchable. He also directed Henry V in 1989, Dead Again, Peter's Friends, the great Much Ado About Nothing, In The Bleak Midwinter, Hamlet, Love's Labour's Lost, As You Like It, The Magic Flute and Sleuth starring Michael Caine and Jude Law. He is rumoured to direct Death on the Nile, which is another Agatha Christie classic, but I personally hope that he doesn't take the lead again, because he lacked wit and the stunning detective work that David Suchet brought to the role. With all of that aside, you do stick with the movie because you want to see who caused the crime but once you know the outcome, I cant see many people watching it again.
Budget: $55million
Worldwide Gross: $351million
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery
Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Penelope Cruz, Josh Gad, Johnny Depp, Derek Jacobi, Adam Garcia, Marwan Kenzari, Lucy Boynton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Judi Dench, Olivia Colman, Willem Defoe, Daisy Ridley, Richard Clifford and Matthew Hawksley. 3/10