Butler's Cinema Scene

Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot

“MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS” My rating: C  

114 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

The year’s strongest cast wrestles inertia to a standstill in “Murder on the Orient Express,” the latest addition to the pantheon of unnecessary remakes.

We already have Sidney Lumet’s perfectly delightful 1974 adaptation of Agatha Christie’s great  railway mystery. But as with Shakespeare, Dame Agatha’s yarns are worthy of retelling for each new generation.  Problem is, this retelling is stillborn.

It’s always difficult to know exactly why a movie goes wrong, but in this case it may very well lie with the decision to have Kenneth Branagh both direct and star as eccentric Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.

The character dominates virtually every scene, which means the acting weight alone was exhausting. To then also ride herd on a huge cast of heavy hitting thespians was too much to ask of anyone.

As it now stands, Branagh disappoints in both capacities. His features masked by absurd facial hair as obviously fake as the computer-generated backgrounds, he makes a mess of Poirot, who goes from crowd-teasing cutup to moody depressive without much in between. Lines that should evoke a laugh barely generate a tentative smile.

As for the directing end of things…well, what can you say when you have this much talent on hand and still end up with a dull yarn weighted down by blah characterizations?

Set aboard a snowbound luxury train on the Istanbul-Paris run, Michael Green’s screenplay clings to the basics of Christie’s tale (the “who” in the “whodunnit” makes for a one of the better revelations in all detective fiction) while dabbling with some of the particulars, largely in an effort to make the project more attractive to today’s mass audience.

Thus the screenplay finds time for one karate fight, a chase down a railroad trestle and a shooting — none of which are to be found in the novel or the earlier film.

While a few of the characters have undergone some tweaking (a physician aboard the train is now a Negro played by Leslie Odom Jr., providing the opportunity to dabble in some racial issues), most cling to Christie’s parameters.

Josh Gad, Johnny Depp

There’s a shady American gangster (Johnny Depp) with his secretary (Josh Gad) and manservant (Derek Jacobi).  A flamboyant American widow on the prowl (Michelle Pfeiffer), a Russian princess (Judi Dench) and her companion (Olivia Coleman).  An overwrought missionary (Penelope Cruz) and a pompous German scientist (Willem Dafoe). A pretty young British woman (Daisy Ridley) and a pill-popping countess (Lucy Boynton).

And so on.

In the course of the train ride one of these passengers is murdered and it’s up to Poirot to sort out the facts and bring the criminal to justice.

Michelle Pfeiffer

How could such talented performers turn in such indifferent work? The 1974 “Murder…” was crammed with lovely bits of acting, generating humor and suspense on the slow methodical road to a satisfactory conclusion. (Ingrid Bergman even won an Oscar for the role in which Cruz gives a colorless reading.)

Branagh’s players are almost instantly forgettable.

The film does a nice job of evoking the lost world of glamorous train travel, and the costuming and overall design are solid.

But murder should be exciting, disturbing, compelling.  And this one’s a snooze.

| Robert W. Butler