Three stars. Rated PG-13, and rather harshly, for brief violence and mild dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang
Many actors long to play Hamlet.
Others look forward to taking a
crack at Hercule Poirot.
Kenneth Branagh is a marvelous
Poirot. He nails Agatha Christie’s famous Belgian private detective: from the
meticulous OCD tendencies — stroking his perfectly coifed mustache, sizing up
the comparative height of his twin breakfast soft-boiled eggs — to the narrowed
gaze and waspish tone that indicate crime scene analysis undertaken by his
“little grey cells.”
Branagh definitely deserves
placement alongside David Suchet and Albert Finney, as cinema’s greatest
Poirots.
Alas, the same cannot be said for
the vehicle in which Branagh’s Poirot inhabits. Screenwriter Michael Green’s
attempt to turn Christie’s Murder on the
Orient Express “relevant” for modern viewers makes a shambles of her
ingeniously plotted 1934 novel. His adaptation commits the cardinal sin of
telegraphing the twist so early, that he gives away the game before we’re even
halfway through the film.
Green was an odd choice for this
assignment. He’s into excess and exploitation: a sci-fi/horror guy whose
credits include Green Lantern, Logan, Alien: Covenant and television’s Gotham and American Gods.
He obviously lacks the subtlety and sly British wit required of a Christie
mystery, which demands the touch of somebody like Peter Morgan (The Queen, television’s The Crown) or Julian Fellowes (Downton Abbey and his own marvelous
Christie pastiche, 2001’s Gosford Park).
Green struggles mightily to
transform this story into an action-oriented adventure akin to director Guy
Ritchie’s recent re-boots of Sherlock Holmes, and it simply doesn’t work. Murder on the Orient Express is a mostly
tranquil drawing-room mystery ... except that it takes place aboard a train.
Branagh also directs, and
succumbs overmuch to long tracking shots and other visual flourishes, which
further diminish the story at hand. One sequence, inexplicably shot from above
the characters’ heads as they enter a train compartment, is incredibly
distracting.
Branagh seems to love the camera
trickery made possible by contemporary CGI effects, and misses no opportunity
for stunning vistas of the eponymous train, as it navigates the mountainous
regions from Here to There: undeniably gorgeous, as is Haris Zambarloukos’
cinematography ... but rather beside the point.
The story takes place in 1934.
Green opens the film with a droll prologue that hasn’t a thing to do with
Christie, but nonetheless deftly establishes everything we need to know about
Poirot. A last-minute change of plans interrupts an intended vacation in
Istanbul, and prompts him to board the lavish Orient Express en route to London
via Italy, Switzerland and France.
Much to the surprise of Poirot’s
young friend Bouc (Tom Bateman), the charming manager of the train, it’s almost
completely full. He nonetheless squeezes the detective on board, where — once
the trip begins — he’s approached by the shifty Edward Ratchett (Johnny Depp,
at his most smarmy). The gangster fears for his life, and believes that
“Her-cue-leeze Pwa-wrought” would make a perfect bodyguard; how much would that
cost?
Poirot declines, with more grace
than the uncomfortable conversation requires.
Subsequent encounters with his
fellow passengers prompt smiles and/or raised eyebrows, after which Poirot
turns in for the night ... or, at least, attempts to do so. A few odd
occurrences are mere preamble to near catastrophe, when the train’s locomotive
is derailed by an avalanche while traveling through the Dinaric Alps (in former
Yugoslavia).
The passenger cars are secure;
nobody is hurt, aside from a few bumps and tumbles. But at daybreak Ratchett is
found dead in his compartment, his body mutilated by multiple stab wounds.
With nothing to do until a work
crew arrives to dig out the locomotive and maneuver it back on the tracks,
Poirot grimly accepts the inevitability of identifying the killer ... who,
given the circumstances, obviously must be one of the passengers or crewmembers
still on the train.
Finney’s starring turn in the
1974 big-screen version of this novel — still the gold-standard adaptation —
prompted stellar casting of the 12 key suspects; the same proved true of
subsequent high-profile Christie adaptations for the next decade-plus (Death on the Nile, Evil Under the Sun and so forth). That formula is replicated here,
and a certain degree of delight emerges from the familiar faces who inhabit key
roles.
Michelle Pfeiffer is the most
ostentatious, as Caroline Hubbard, a widow on the prowl whose flirtatiously
behavior raises Poirot’s eyebrows more than a little. Pfeiffer has a lot of fun
with the role, her mocking gaze a constant challenge to the Belgian detective.
Josh Gad is well cast as Hector
MacQueen, a twitchy, oily little man employed as Ratchett’s secretary. The role
is far from Gad’s usual high-comedy touches, but he’s quite believable as a
nervous fellow with much to hide.
Derek Jacobi is the pluperfect
manservant as Edward Masterman, Ratchett’s calmly obedient butler; Judi Dench
is appropriately haughty as Princess Natalia Dragomiroff, a Russian aristocrat
never seen without her two little dogs. Daisy Ridley is pert and spunky as Mary
Debenham, a governess between postings; Leslie Odom Jr. makes the stalwart Dr.
Arbuthnot oddly over-qualified, often offering alibis and reasonable
alternatives to Poirot’s musings.
On the other hand, some
characters — and casting choices — don’t work at all. Olivia Colman is a blank
slate as Hildegarde Schmidt, Princess Dragomiroff’s maid; she’s unable to do
anything with a shamefully under-written role. Lucy Boynton is barely seen as the
frail Countess Andrenyl; her easily enraged husband, Count Andrenyl (Sergei
Polunin), seems to have wandered in from an unrelated martial-arts movie. His
character is ridiculous, and Polunin’s performance is way over the top.
Willem Dafoe doesn’t do much with
his role as Gerhard Hardman, a racist Austrian whose political views offend
everybody else. Marwan Kenzari fares better as first-class conductor Pierre
Michel, whose ready smile and ubiquitous good cheer do much to defuse tense
moments.
They’re all outshone by Penélope
Cruz, whose Pilar Estravados is the only character — aside from Poirot — who
feels like she stepped out of the pages of Christie’s novel. Cruz understands
precisely how to shade Pilar, an impassioned missionary with a distaste for
vice and a biblically doom-laden view of the world.
Characters and story aside, the
film is visually sumptuous. Production designer Jim Clay re-creates the opulent
Orient Express down to the tiniest detail, and costume designer Alexandra Byrne
completes the illusion; period dramas rarely look and feel this authentic.
There’s no question that Branagh has overseen an impeccably mounted film, but
that counts for little when the story fails.
And that’s the major problem.
Most of the characters simply aren’t very interesting, and Green’s clumsy
handling of the mystery makes things worse. A good Christie adaptation also
should be fun, and — aside from the
delightful tics and hiccups that Branagh gives Poirot — there’s very little
humor here.
I’m forced to wonder — with
profound regret — whether Agatha Christie remains relevant to any beyond those
who devour Brit-lit delights such as Downton
Abbey and The Crown. Other recent
attempts to “modernize” Christie classics have ranged from disappointing to
downright dreadful, as with 2015’s ghastly TV miniseries update of And Then There Were None.
These
stories only work as Christie conceived them, in the appropriate time and
place, and with her style and original plots intact. If they can’t be adapted
that way — even with somebody as talented as Branagh at the helm — then they
shouldn’t be done at all.
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