Straight up, I should give a full disclosure here first. I've never read the original novel, I haven't seen the previous film or TV adaptations, nor am I that familiar with the story. My reactions to this movie are purely based on the lack of knowledge on what's going to happen, which greatly differs from others' reactions who are familiar with the material. Now with that out of the way, let me go ahead and say that when I saw that they were going to do another movie adaptation of Agatha Christie's "Murder On The Orient Express," I was excited and a little concerned about it.
My concerns were primarily because of the huge cast, that involves Kenneth Branagh, Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Josh Gad, Daisy Ridley, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Willem Dafoe, and many more. I was worried that the movie wouldn't know how to give each and every one of them an equal amount of screen time, which could result in an overly bloated narrative. It turns out that this movie wasn't concerned at all about giving each one of them an equal time on the screen. With that said, unfortunately this movie wasn't concerned at all about giving each one of them an equal time on the screen.
One of my main problems in how the narrative plays out is that the movie does focus the most on particular characters, and everybody else are just relegated to the background like an after thought. So while the tagline for this movie does say that "everyone is a suspect," we know certain characters are likely not. Admittedly that's my own fault in thinking that way, but it's nevertheless distracting when participating in watching a whodunnit mystery.
As for the mystery itself, it is good, filled with twists and turns, red herrings, and what not. People will describe it as an old-fashioned murder mystery, and contains many familiar time honored plot tropes as well. I thought some of the coincidences took me out of the movie though. The other thing that took me out of the movie was this huge shift in the tone! The first half was filled with this energy and exciting build up to the murder. The second half which involves the actual procedural investigation itself dragged for me. I ended up frustrated and restless with the pacing. Which is odd, because story-wise it technically goes through a lot of intricate plot details in the time that was given. I have a feeling that I would be more forgiving if I had another viewing of it.
The main reason for me to re-watch this, would be for Kenneth Branagh's performance as the great eccentric detective Hercule Poirot. I thought it was a fun character to watch, and I was genuinely entertained by the fact this movie primarily revolves around him. I also really appreciated the somber and tragic conclusion, plus the overall theme of the story, which honestly encourages me to retroactively forgive the flaws I had with this movie. For the time being though, I thought it could overall have been a better movie than what we've got.
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