Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

The Orient Express is snowed in but Kenneth Branagh's movie, so fussily presented it looks more like the Polar than the Orient Express, is a runaway train ripping through the details of Agatha Christie's book at breakneck speed so that there is no weight to any of it, and at this pace no number of sweeping camera shots back and forth over the enormous cast helps commit any of the individuals to memory - they are all far less important than Branagh's overthought, spectacularly odd moustaches - and in the end it is left to an overbearing soundtrack to insist, ridiculously, on the profundity of end scenes.

★☆☆☆☆

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Murder On The Orient Express (1974)

Given it is essentially a string of twelve or thirteen dialogues between Hercule Poirot and one suspect after another aboard the snowed-in Orient Express, scene of a ghastly murder, it is surprising how engaging Sidney Lumet's 1974 film version of Agatha Christie's book is, helped of course by its all-star cast and the fact the story is inspired by the real-life Lindbergh kidnapping, a crime that captivated and so outraged the world one suspects it would have even turned Agatha Christie's world famous eggheaded Belgian detective into a revenge-murder conspirator.

★★★★☆

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