MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS

I turned my head and my brother in law was snoring, I nudged him, he woke up. And once he woke up he stayed awake.

The reason for him falling asleep was because the film was taking too long to get to the actual murder. There was too much talking; talking that was without tension and talking that especially when Poirot was talking in audible, partly because of the accent and partly because of the moustache.

A particular scene which went on for far too long, which was slowly taking me into dreamland, was the scene between Depp and Poirot. I didn't really care what was being said, because of the aforementioned issues as well as the added factor that Depp was channeling a bit of Jack Sparrow, and whatever was being said could have been said much quicker.

I hadn't read the book, so I didn't know the ending, but even if I had read the book it was worth watching because of some of the majestic shots of the middle eastern cities from times gone by. Istanbul looked magical and tingled with a romanticism and nostalgia which made me wish that I could have experienced that first hand, but I cannot unless a time machine is created, and that most likely isn't going to be created.

Juxtaposing these glorious shots that take you back in time, were the shots of the train chugging along the train tracks through mountains, sometimes it looked great and sometimes it looked so very CGI and Polar Express lite. Now, when the murder takes place, because I didn't really know the characters names, and because they didn't show the body I was unaware as to who exactly had been murdered. And the murder itself, takes place off camera, until the big reveal at the end, but it would have been better to show the eyes of the murdered losing the will to live. The murdered came across less as a person and more as an object because as a viewer you never gained any connection to him.

The story did keep you guessing right till the end, throwing in red herrings and ensuring that the audience were always unclear as to which character or characters were the killers, though sometimes the red herrings didn't make sense, making you question if the red herrings are for us the audience or for the character Poirot.

The motivation of each character and a side story connecting the events on the Orient Express, were mechanically great but emotionally void. The film itself lacked an emotional punch, until arguably the denouement and the lack of tension stopped you from being fully engaged with it.

Poirot, the TV version will always be the definitive Poirot, for me at least, and though Brannagh does a great job, if there were more lighter scenes such as the giggling he does when reading Dickens, it would have been a more joyous performance.

All the actors were great, especially Cat Woman, and the woman that was addicted to Barbitol and at the end of the movie you realise that the Poirot Universe has been put into motion, 'theres been a murder on the Nile!' now if they can get the emotional punch down and ratchet up the tension then they may have something marvellous, something that Agatha Christie would be proud of.

3/5