Should've been better.

Rating: 3/10 (18 November 2017)

First of all, I feel obligated to share with you what this movie means personally to me. I have read the book by Agatha Christie twice, then watched Sidney Lumet's 1974 take and adored revisiting Hercule Poirot's investigation every single time. Albert Finney perfectly captured the essence of the character and the M. Lumet's directorial skills left me on the edge of my seat for the entire run time of the movie. "Murder on the Orient Express" is my favorite Agatha Christie novel, and Hercule Poirot one of my favorite literature characters. Having said that, it is with absolute sorrow that I say that Kenneth Branagh's remake made me leave the theater utterly disappointed. The movie's not all bad, of course. One thing that really caught my attention was the set and costume designs. Everything looked authentic, and I can see the film getting a couple of Oscar nominations in these two categories (maybe even win one à la Suicide Squad). Something that was talked about a lot was the cast. Everybody did a good job but unfortunately nobody was given a real chance to shine. I found some of the casting choices unnecessarily distracting and questionable (Daisy Ridley, Josh Gad or Johnny Depp). Kenneth Branagh was okay I guess.. But Albert Finney was a superior Poirot in my opinion. As I mentioned earlier, I found the movie to be very disappointing, and here is why: The film was tonally inconsistent (it started off goofy and over the top to suddenly take a much more serious approach), there was no character development, the cinematography could've been better.. But the thing that annoyed me the most was the screenplay. The dialogue was cheesy, some added scenes took me out of the general ambiance the movie was going for, and I never felt included in the investigation. That movie added nothing to the original. In fact, the few scenes that were added ruined what is one of the best detective stories ever written. And that's too bad.