'I can only see a world as it should be. It makes an imperfection stick out like the nose on your face.'

Rating: 8/10 (3 March 2018)

'I can only see a world as it should be. It makes an imperfection stick out like the nose on your face.'
Michael Green's adaptation of Agatha Christie's famous novel MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS is updated and at times thinned out so that the Christie trademark tension slags a bit, but Kenneth Branagh does his best both as the director and the star of the film to recreate enough mystery and visual splendor to make the film work well.
Many of Agatha Christie's insightful comments are intact - such as 'You know, there is something about a tangle of strangers pressed together for days with nothing in common but the need to go from one place to another and never see each other again.' The plot (which must be guarded well for future viewers) is as follows: Having just solved a mysterious theft in Jerusalem, the famed Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh), is in need of balancing things in his life with a small vacation, in 1934 Istanbul. Instead, the vigilant detective will soon find himself aboard the luxurious Orient Express on a trip to Calais, sharing a carriage with an eclectic assortment of first-class travellers (Penelope Cruz, Johnny Depp, Derek Jacobi, Michelle Pfeiffer, Judi Dench, Willem Dafoe et al) and an invisible murderer who walks unnoticed among them. When a sudden massive avalanche blocks the tracks, trapping the passengers in the locomotive, the gruesome murder of a commuter in his cabin will force Poirot to solve a conundrum where everyone is a suspect. In the end, who could be the killer?
The cinematography by Haris Zambarioukos and the musical score by Peter Doyle add atmosphere. It is a worth re-statement of the Christie story if a bit too drawn out.