Murder on the Orient Express (2001)

The first must-see film of the year.

The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Too updated for my tastes. I really liked the version with Albert Finney from 1974. Who can argue with Sean Connery, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Anthony Perkins and Richard Widmark? I also think their dropping four of the participants in this modernized version really reduced it and their use of the Internet rather cheapens it. Searching by Google tells rather than slowly reveals. It made detective work far too easy.Don't think me a purist. I thoroughly enjoyed the David Suchet version. Actually I thought it was one of the better "Poirot" scripts. I look forward to the Branagh version in 2017.I will give this version five stars. It wasn't bad but the script took far too many liberties with Poirot's character and with the story. I've seen decent modern age Poirot before, like the Thirteen For Dinner from 1985. They knew what to update and what to leave alone.

I saw this on TV and thought: Yeah its alright. Then I looked deeper into it. The story is pretty much as the book and the 1974 film. Horrible man gets bumped off during the night. Differences are this is set in 2001 instead of 1934. Bringing Poirot and technology together is a worse move than bringing mankind and dinosaurs together. Poirot using a VCR? A Laptop computer? Falling for a beautiful woman? Come on please??? this is Hercule Poirot not James Bond. Characters are missing - I wont list them as it spoils it. The technology as I mentioned and an EWS loco pulling it??? where does this train run from? Birmingham to Bristol? EWS stands for English, Welsh and Scottish Railways Ltd and is a freight carrier. I will add, although its nothing as the great Dame Agatha envisaged, its worth a watch on a wet Sunday afternoon even just out of pure curiosity for die hard Poirot fans.

OK, it's a TV movie.OK ,they have moved a great story in the modern age without too much money and with some undistinguished TV actors.But Molina is a great, great, great Poirot (and actually now the best living film actor) second only to Suchet...because Suchet can live in Poirot's age! And Natasha Wightman is far better than pale-acting Vanessa Redgrave as the frosty and haughty Mary Hermione Debenham (and Amira Casar give some sense and heart to the Helena'character ;Jacqueline Bisset was only beautiful, but she don't gave any feeling to her part as the only living survivor in a butchered family.Casar was tragic and shattered.Bisset was a model on the catwalk):The screenplay is quite faithful, and not a buffoonery as sometimes it happens with Poirot films (if Ustinov is on the crime scene,alas!)So, not so bad at all...And I love to think Monsieur Poirot in the arms of beautiful Vera De Vasconcelos!!!! They could make a miniseries,I would love to see Molina solve faithfully at last THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD!!!!!!

The 1974 movie of this book was a mixed bag. Obligations to the all-star cast caused most of the problems, as the writers and editors jockeyed to give everyone an equitable amount of screen time, an actorly moment and some close-ups. This prevented it from being a very deep film, and Sidney Lumet is really only a workmanlike filmmaker. But still, despite those limitations, there is much pleasure in the earlier version; the wordless flashback prologue of a kidnapping is beautifully done. Rare for a murder mystery, the unfolding of the solution provides a startling, satisfying emotional payload.For this retelling, a decision was made to update the material to the contemporary era. The topical references that acknowledge the world has changed since the thirties really achieve naught, except perhaps alleviating some writers fear that the material is passé... There's too many of these self-conscious references (to air travel, the internet, VCRs, taking the Express out of mothballs, Ross Perot) and they become annoying. Other changes are there simply because filmmakers thought it would make it more conventional (Hercule Poirot has a ridiculous romantic interest, "Vera"). The biggest bummer is the substitution of a utilitarian diesel engine for the original stylish steam locomotive. Thud.Ultimately these revisions add nothing to the movie and seem to have taken the focus off producing a tight, compelling, methodical script. The highlight of the previous movie was the cross-cutting between the temporal time-frame and the crime. This movie lifts that technique, but doesn't really come up with any contribution of it's own. The color palette, the research and the envisioning of the crime were all more vivid in the earlier version. Alfred Molina is pretty bad in this. It just isn't interesting.