Five Little Pigs (2003)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Brilliant and touching

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

I saw this when it first aired in 2003, when I was 11, and I was very impressed, really I was. Two years ago, I read the book, and I personally think the book is up there among the best with Death on the Nile and Murder in Mesopotamia. What impressed me most with the TV adaptation, which I got on video recently, was that some of the scenes, like the hanging scene, were genuinely haunting, and that's what I want to feel in a mystery. The music score gave that haunted feeling and some poignancy, in an already complicated story. As far as I can remember, the overall structure was faithful to the book, and I also liked the actress of Caroline Crale, as you really feel for her, and Amias was certainly hissable here in the way they made him behave. Marc Warren and Gemma Jones also do well as Meridith and Mrs Williams. Also what the writers got right were Angela's disfigurement and although it was changed, the ending with Lucy in the lovely dress was very effective. As ever, David Suchet is impeccable as Hercule Poirot, and he is helped by a brooding script. However there were two things I didn't like about the adaptation- the idea of Blake being homosexual(I don't think that was in the book), and Julie Cox was perhaps too old for Elsa. All in all, technically and visually it's a delight to look at, and I enjoyed this adaptation very much, though I do prefer the book. 9/10 Bethany Cox.

This is one of Dame Agatha's more engaging conundrums, though not exactly the kind of acute examination of "the psychology" that Hercule Poirot (David Suchet) claims it is.Let's see. There is one of those perfervid painter-types, Amyas Crale, a Byronic figure, married to a good-enough wife but having one affair after another. He drinks a glass of beer and drops dead, poisoned in the proper British manner. The deed seems to have been prompted by Crayle's announcement that this time his love affair with his model (Julie Cox) was serious and he intended to shrug off his marriage and replace his wife with his model. The wife is convicted and, without any protest from her, hanged. That was fourteen years ago. Now, the daughter is convinced of her mother's innocence and hires Poirot to investigate.So who did it? Well, there were only about half a dozen people present at the isolated rural mansion at the time of the murder. Was it Crayle's best friend from boyhood (Toby Stephens)? Maybe it was Meredith, another boyhood friend who is always skulking around and who, after all, had a collection of chemicals in the basement, the poison among them. Or maybe it was Crayle's own daughter, blinded in one eye by her mother years ago, killing her father in order to frame her mother who is the obvious suspect. Might it not have been Julie Cox, the model he was apparently about to marry? But, no. What motive would she have for killing her lover? Could Crayle's wife actually be GUILTY? Or was there some stranger out of the past who sneaked in and did the dirty deed? Well -- not that. Because all of Agatha Christie's plots involve only the suspects who are around at the time of the murder.Now, I'll tell you who did it. (Not really.) I enjoyed this more than most of the movie-length episodes in the series for a couple of reasons. One is that there was no subordinate or embedded crime, irrelevant to the murder itself, that might have thrown the plot off kilter. None of the suspects is a closet jewel thief or anything. It's a nice clean mystery. Second, I could tell the characters apart. As always, they're introduced with a name and a phrase and we're given a two-second shot of the suspect's face. But this time there seemed to be fewer suspects, and they LOOKED different from one another. Toby Stephens I already recognized from "The Great Gatsby" TV production, which should have been called "The Great Blunder." The others had some visible distinguishing characteristic -- the beard; the disfigured face; the great enormous stupendous colossal raccoon-like exopthalmic eyeballs of Julie Cox, the model, who looks as if she could eat a normal human being alive by nibbling him to death with her pupils. I haven't read the novel but I imagine some modernization has gone on. The artist and Toby Stephens, as it turns out, were more than just friends during their boyhood.David Suchet IS Poirot, giving a shaded performance much different from his splashier big-screen counterparts.I admired, too, the tale for having a moral behind it. Van Gogh, Modigliani, Toulouse-Lautrec, Jackson Pollack, and the rest notwithstanding -- one should never drink while trying to paint. Not unless you want your model to turn up with three breasts.

I absolutely loved this movie. It was VERY faithful to the book. And the book is a heart-breaking novel. I was moved to tears. There was only one MAJOR change, and that was (the usual) making a character gay. There was also a tense moment at the end, with an attempted assassination of the killer. This scene was never in the novel. (It's just a tense psychological moment.) But other than that, the movie was fantastic. An enjoyable cast and great storyline, and David Suchet once again plays the unbelievable Hercule Poirot. To summarize, the movie was an enjoyable experience, faithful to the original material unlike some episodes out there (*cough* Cards on the Table *cough*). Well done!

'Five Little Pigs'is a hauntingly beautiful film with brilliant performances from its entire cast, especially David Suchet (Hercule Poirot) and the amazingly beautiful,Rachael Stirling (Caroline Crale). I haven't read the novel, and so won't compare the film with the book. It is indeed a very sad, melancholic story which poignantly illustrates the dark shades of the human psyche,..there is very little alleviating about the film, and in my opinion that is how indeed it should be! The performances by the entire cast are first rate, and you indeed feel sorry for everyone involved...even the real murderer at the end. Another thing that struck me was that the "suffering" wife looked a lot better than the "other woman",who came across as childish in comparison... something that has also been rightly been commented upon by another reviewer! Another masterpiece from the "Poirot" series....go ahead and watch it...at least once...the story and the performances will stay with you for a long time, I promise! Agatha Christe was indeed the undisputed "Queen of Crime Fiction"...hats off to her !!