Johnny Depp and Judi Dench can't save Murder on the Orient Express
This starry Kenneth Branagh remake of the Agatha Christie classic is missing vital clues
Agatha Christie, “Murder on the Orient Express” tells the tale of thirteen strangers stranded on a train, where everyone’s a suspect. Out in November 2017.
There’s not a lot you can do with Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. Though blessed with one of the great denouements in golden-age crime fiction, the story consists of little else but stilted interviews with cardboard suspects who shed clues as snakes shed skin. Sidney Lumet knew that and, making few efforts to expand or subvert the text, threw gorgeous production values at the screen to deliver the 1974 rainy-afternoon classic.