Rating ★★
What It's About
Detective Poirot is finally retiring. Taking a train from his last case, he's looking forward to a relaxing journey reading Dickens but he boarded the wrong train. A murder takes place and it becomes apparent that the murderer is still on the train, Poirot must come out of retirement to solve the murder but this will be the strangest and most difficult case he's ever worked.
There was so much buzz about this one, am I right?! At first I thought it was because it has such a large and famous cast but then, silly me, I realized it was based on a book. An Agatha Christie book. Sorry. I never read her books. I couldn't get into them. Anyways, After realizing why it was so popular I decided to give it a try; I like a good mystery, after all.
And it definitely was a mystery. I tried very hard to guess what was going on but they did a very good job of keeping you guessing (if you hadn't already read the book) and I appreciated that. Of course, now I'm trying to figure out why you'd want to see this one if you read the book. If I hadn't been guessing what was going on the whole time I might have been bored.
I did guess what was going on, right before the big reveal but maybe that's what I was supposed to do. And what a strange reveal it was. Suddenly this murder mystery was trying to be all important with a moral question presented. Meh. I wasn't blown away.
The cinematography in this one was beautiful! Seriously. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets nominated for an Oscar for that or at least costume design. It was a feast for the eyes. I loved it.
Kenneth Branagh was a delight as usual. He was quite funny and you could tell he brought his personality into the directing.
All in all, I only found this one pleasing to watch for its cinematography. The mystery had me guessing but when all was revealed I was just left with a lot of questions.
Let's Talk
This movie really made me want to take a train ride on this kind of train minus the murder. Do these kind of trains even exist anymore? If not, I'm sad.
Recommendation
While I want to tell you to see its beauty on the big screen, you should probably just Redbox it or wait till it's on Netflix.
A lot of people have said they were really bored with this one.
ReplyDeleteYeah. I’m not surprised.
DeleteBummer. I liked the book, although I wasn't blown away by it. The movie looks interesting because of the stellar cast and the cinematography. And, truly, I can't remember who the murderer was and it's only been about a month since I read the book. Ha ha.
ReplyDeleteYeah. It’s not memorable at all in movie form either.
DeleteI've this book in my pile. I've read many rave reviews so that's why I bought it yet I haven't got around to reading it. The film definitely intrigues me. I'd like to watch it based on the cinematography alone.
ReplyDeleteThe cinematography really was fun.
DeleteYou're the third person I know to have seen it and not been impressed. Bummer!
ReplyDeleteYeah. Im not sure what happened.
DeleteI really liked this one. I'm sorry you were bored. Corey thought it was predictable. He had it figured out within the first 30 minutes. Not sure how, but he did.
ReplyDeleteWow! It took me awhile to figure it out.
DeleteI heard the 1974 version of this movie was the better one to see; I think I'll follow your advice and just wait to Redbox this one.
ReplyDeleteI’ve heard the same but I don’t know if I’d even try it after this one.
DeleteDang I'm sorry to hear you didn't really like it for anything other than it's cinematography. At first I was really undecided whether or not I wanted to see it because I have read the book (it's one of my favorite Agatha Christie books to date) and that kind of defeats the point of a mystery, like you pointed out. I really want to see it now, though, because you mentioned the beautiful visuals! I'm an absolute sucker for visuals (Interstellar was gorgeous among others). That would absolutely make my day if they added it to Netflix soon. Lovely review, Jenny!
ReplyDeleteLaura @BlueEyeBooks
If you liked the book you should see it. I’d love to see a comparison review
DeleteI was kind of looking forward to this, even though I've had trouble with Agatha Christie in the past (mainly they just seem so dry to me), so it's a bummer to hear it was disappointing. Not super surprising though I guess. I do love the sound of the cinematography and the idea of the train...
ReplyDeleteYeah. It wasn’t all bad.
Delete