Film Review : Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

Rating: 8/10

Genre: Murder Mystery/ Thriller

Related films: Source Code, Phonebooth, Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

By Leanne Harragan 

When a murder takes place during the journey across Europe, the world’s greatest detective, Hercule Poirot must interrogate passengers and explore clues before time runs out and the murderer strikes again. 

I have neither read nor seen the original ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ but I have heard that this follows Christie’s source material quite closely, so that’s a win for book fans everywhere. This film had a flashy trailer and a star studded cast (with the exception of Johnny Depp) and for me personally it lived up to the hype quite well. 

The plot was engaging and easy enough to follow and it keeps you guessing (or at least kept me guessing down to the very end.) It does well to keep the audience engaged while it’s set in one place, with very little space to work with; films like this can often become repetitive or boring. 

The cast is another great part of this film with Kenneth Branagh doing a wonderful job of playing the world’s greatest detective, with quirks and habits; he brings the character to life. I didn’t love his French accent but I think this was because I knew that he was British, if I didn’t know that I wouldn’t have second guessed it. Another stand out for me was Josh Gad, who was enjoyable to watch especially during his interrogation scene. This cast worked so well I think because each character was given enough personality and backstory that they were easy enough to tell apart without the need of remembering who was who. 

Overall, this film looked good, had a great score, an all-star cast and a solid who-dunnit plot that was engaging enough.

Rating : 6.5/10

By Rebecca Mannick

For a film with a huge expectation, massive advertising campaign and a star-studded Hollywood cast - I was grossly disappointed. It’s not a terrible movie by any means, and obviously the storyline is fairly strong as it has lasted the test of time. I just was hoping for a bit more punch to the execution. Similarly to Leanne I had not read or seen the original movie, but I had some idea of what the movie would entail. Maybe I had an unfair expectation because of the previous successful adaptations of the same story. 

The murder mystery genre is completely up-my-street and I must admit that I was surprised at the ‘reveal’ which makes a change as usually its all very predictable. I also enjoyed the complexity of the sub-plot and how each character interlinked making it very hard for the audience to disengage. With that being said I wasn’t utterly absorbed in the movie, I could even say that it was slightly boring. The more I think about this movie I get even more disappointed, just because I thought it was going to be so much better than it actually was. It had such potential to be a huge hit this year but just fell short in my opinion. 

You can’t really fault any of the performances by the actors, nothing less of what you expect. The amount of experience and knowledge in each of the scenes must have been unbelievable to experience. I wonder if they all worked together well or if there were so many characters that they would clash. We could have also done without a certain Johnny Depp in the movie. 

I didn’t laugh, I didn’t cry, I just found all a bit meh (for lack of a better word). If you were looking forward to this film, I would say to lower your expectations. If you were a fan of the original book or movie, then I would probably say you’d be disappointed too.