A Poirot for the clinicaly dumb

Rating: 3/10 (9 March 2018)

Ever since I heard that Kenneth Brannagh was going to direct, produce and star in this movie that I dreaded this would happen, and it did - Brannagh is so self centered that he made the whole film about himself, turning the rest of the cast into mere decorations. He managed to turn this Christie's masterpiece into a self agrandising piece of crap. Let's just say that it makes the 2002 version with Alfred Molina look like a masterpiece in comparison - and that's saying a lot, because it was simply one of the worst films I'd ever seen.
I don't know who the hell Brannagh is supposed to be playing, but it sure as hell isn't Poirot - not the one Agatha Christie wrote about. Anyone who has read her books about the egg shapped belgian sleuth - and I have, all of them, more than once - knows that he's nothing like the buffon Brannagh plays in the movie: Poirot walking on top of the train!?? Going beneath the train!?? Poirot willingly plunging his shoe into a pile of excrements just so both his shoes get equally dirty, all in the name of simetry!?? For the love of all that is holy! Poirot would have an apoplexy if only one of his shoes got accidently dirty with sh@t, can you imagine him doing it on purpose!? And what about that freaking mustache? It's so damn big it becomes distracting. Poirot's mustache is supposed to be big, yes, but not gigantic! And what's with the fly in his chin? Poirot doesn't have one, what was Brannagh thinking? Oh yeah, I forgot, he wasn't. And don't let me get started on the annoyingly fake french accent he uses throughout all the freaking movie - he even mispronounces repeatedly the plural for egg (oeufs), and Poirot is supposed to be a french speaking belgian!
Also, on this film Poirot doesn't have conversations with people, as he does in the novel, he simply delivers endless monologues, conjuring facts out of thin air (or out of his ass, is more likely), things he couldn't possibly have known. He looks more like a witch than a detective. And he's everywhere, in every freaking scene. Ego much, Brannagh?
Brannagh's direction is so pedestrian it hurts. All those freaking camera angles - shooting the damn train from every possible position, shooting the action literaly from above, - were so ridiculous and pretensious, it's beyond words. It's the worst kind of in your face grandstanding directing you could get.
The screenplay is beyond bad - it completely butchers one of Christie's masterpieces by adding sex and violence that wasn't there, dumbing down her expert character development and plot, and adding artificial diversity just to please the hollywwod pc bullshit brigade. Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favor of diversity, but in movies that take place in na era where diversity exists, like today or the future. But in a story that takes place in 1934, in the most luxurious train in the world? Really? Can you really see a black doctor travelling in first class on the Orient Express in 1934? As much as I hate it, the answer can only be one to anyone familiar with the world's history: hell no! Nevertheless, that's what you have: an amalgamation of two characters into one black british doctor in love with a white middle class english girl, all for the sake of hitting the audience over the head with not so subtle references to the terrible evils of racism. If only Hollywood would get it in their thick heads that audiences only want to be told a good story, not to be preached at every time they go to watch a movie...
In conclusion, this is Poirot for the clinicaly dumb. You want to see the real Poirot, as he should be played? Watch the ITV series "Agatha Christie's Poirot" with David Suchet - he IS Poirot, period. Want to watch the best version of this story? Watch the 1974 version, directed by Sidney Lumet and learn how to correctly adapt Agatha Christie. But better yet, buy the freaking novel and read it - you still know what reading an actual book is like, don't you? Either way, do yourself a favor and stay away from this piece of garbage (I'm giving it three stars for the sets and costumes, for Judi Dench and for Johnny Deep, that's it).