Just as the Christmas holidays are starting (or so in Belgium), I wanted to write some words about a movie I had been looking forward to for quite some time.
The trailer for this very famous story has been triggering me from the neon font through the enormous cast of famous actors. If you haven’t seen the trailer, go to IMDB right away. Unless you’re one of those people who doesn’t watch trailers and goes into it with an open mind.
Ah well, and so I finally went to see the famous Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective created by Achata Christie. Hercule is portrayed by Kenneth Branagh, who I immediately recognized as professor Lockhart from the Harry Potter series. You remember him? The self-loving very handsome professor who eventually seems to be the worst wizard in the world. Anyways, just like the role of Lockhart, the character of Poirot is funny. Poirot doesn’t want to be funny, but he’s weird and very neurotic. “I see the world as it should be”, which makes him the perfect detective, who can see every mistake. The neurotic side of Poirot is the main focus of the film. So, if you far form neurotic, you may not like Poirot.
Poirot wants to have some time for himself, after solving a critic case – which is the opening scene of this film – but gets called away for another urgent mystery that needs to be solved. In Istanbul, he sees (oh what a coincidence) his old friend, Bouc, who is the owner of the Orient Express. Bouc invites him to go along on the famous express to Dover, first class, of course. Honestly, I have no idea if there even is a second class on this train, I did not see anyone else but the crew and travelers of the first class. (Maybe they ran out of budget since every actor in this film will have cost them a fortune)
On the train, he meets all the other characters. My god, what a bunch. They all have their stories, but honestly, no-one is “normal”. You have a nun, a black doctor (I’m sorry I can’t really believe that at that time this would have been possible), a professor, a count, and countess, etc. I mean, there is not just a classic family on board, they are all traveling alone or with staff. All of them with an extreme storyline. It absolutely bothered me in the beginning, but in the end it will make sense.
I need to be honest and tell you I haven’t read the book or saw the movie back from 1974. So, except the trailer, I was going in blind.
Okay, so in the first class, a person gets killed – surprise. I don’t want to tell you guys who it is, since that will totally spoil it. But, I will say, it’s a famous actor (haha). Poirot seems to be at the right place at the right time and tries to crack the case. It seems that this case is more complicated than his other solved mysteries. He gets confronted with himself and his past. Again, this movie totally evolves around Poirot.
I am not going in deeper on the storyline, it will just ruin it.
As you may have guessed the train is not a real train, nor are the mountains and snow. Although, I didn’t hate the CGI, at all. It was really pretty. I truly loved the CGI work in the Istanbul scenes, where you can’t tell the difference between reality and CGI. The images of the train (I mean you can practically smell the wood), the architecture of the dome in Istanbul, the costumes, just amazing. I would have loved to be able to work on that set. My god, so beautiful.
Would I recommend watching it on the big screen? I suppose. Although, I went to see it with some friends of which one of them is a director, and he didn’t like it at all. So, he probably wasted his money on this one.
I love movies, but I’m a critic without technical knowledge. I am the kid who has stars in her eyes whenever she goes into the movie theater. I would recommend seeing the movie, but maybe not in the theater. It might as well be a good one to see at home, if it comes out on Netflix or if it’s on Blue-Ray.
I am rating this movie at 7/10.
7/10
Just a small piece of advice, the 26th of December is the busiest day to go to the movie theater. Maybe just skip that day if you truly want to go to the cinema this holiday. Merry Christmas guys!
