Will another remake of this title actually gonna be as good as the book?
This article is written in English.
TL;DR
Murder on the Orient Express (2017) is a detective-esque movie with rushed storyline in two hours runtime. Not that good. Kinda disappointing.
Warning and Brief Explanation
Brief Warning
This review article contains spoilers. Please refrain yourself if you don't want to spoil yourself.
Age Rating
- Its official website1 showed that the rating for this movie is PG-13, which means that it's okay to be watched by persons above 13.
- Based on my understanding4, this movie does have a shot where a character lies on a bed, and blood due to getting stabbed also can be seen. There is also a stabbing scene later near the end, but it's not shown explicitly (people stabbing can be seen, but the stabbed object is not shown to the audience). There are some conversation that implicitly referring to "sexual acts" throughout the movie, but most of it is not that explicit I think. All of these scenes are probably why the movie is rated as PG-13, as parents probably could have given some guidance to people above age 13 when watching this movie.
Notice
- This article aimed to review this movie, and spread information about it.
- No copyright infringement intended, aside from this article that is written by myself.
- Media shown here, whether images, videos, or such are embedded from the original source.
Introduction
Back in 2017, this movie premiered in theatres in Indonesia. At that time, I didn't have enough money and time to watch this one. Then near the end of 2018, when travelled to Jakarta, I bought the hard-copy of this book in Periplus, and finished the book probably in mid 2019. I quite like the book, even though the contents are a bit hard to read as the book written in two language, i.e. English and French, and they didn't translate what this French sentences mean, which makes it harder for someone who don't know French at all. This year (2022), I decided to watch the movie during suhoor-session. Also, before I close this part, the movie has been remade for various times already. If you look at IMDb, there are at least six other year with similar title. So... Will this latest remake will be as good as the book? Or at least decently good?
Prior to read this review, you could watch this trailer available on YouTube:
Trailer
![Murder on the Orient Express | Official Trailer [HD] | 20th Century FOX](https://img.youtube.com/vi/Mq4m3yAoW8E/hqdefault.jpg)
Details and Viewer Discretion
Series Details
Following information compiled from various sources, namely its page on 20th Century Studios1, and its page on IMDb2, its page on Wikipedia3, and my own understanding4.
| Title | Murder on the Orient Express |
|---|---|
| Also Known As (a.k.a) | There are various translations to this title in various languages which can be read here2. |
| Released on | 03 November 2017 (United Kingdom), 29 November 2017 (Indonesia)2. |
| Genre | Crime2, Drama1-2, Mystery2, Suspense1, Thriller1. |
| Type | Movie. |
| Running Time | 114 min (1 hour 54 min)1-3. However, Disney+ Hotstar stated that the duration is 1 hour 49 min. 5 minute shorter than other pages. |
| Notable People1 |
|
| Original Country2 | United States, United Kingdom, Malta. |
| Spoken Language | English, French (a few times), Arabic (one or two sentences). |
| Subtitle | Various languages of subtitles are available already as the movie could be seen through various platforms already. At least English, Thai, and Indonesian are available in Disney+ Hotstar in my country. However, please take note that foreign language is not translated to the subtitle. At least the English one as I watched in English. For me, this is frustrating, honestly. I was hoping that these sentences could be translated too, so I could understand what they are saying. But no. They just showed [SPEAKING IN FRENCH], which is... annoying. |
| Platform or Where to Watch | The movie can be watched on various platforms, and requires premium subscription/money to rent/buy the movie. The platforms are Disney+ Hotstar, YouTube Movies, Google Play Movies, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and Vudu. Please also check your location as the licence is probably different for each country. |
| Award and Nominations | The movie was nominated in various awards according to Wikipedia3, and came as Runner-up as Best Costume Design in Las Vegas Film Critics Society (2017). |
| Viewer Discretion |
|
Review
Theme, Background
The movie revolves around a murder that happened in a train that boarded by Poirot. A man, Ratchett was murdered on his compartment, and no one knew about till morning came. Bouc then asked Poirot to solve this case, to prevent police to pinpoint anyone as the murderer. Poirot, with his ability then begin interviewing all passengers in the same train, and the next train.
Characters, Story Flow, Dialogue, Point of View
Characters
Main character in this movie is probably Hercule Poirot as the movie revolves around him as the detective. I consider other characters as side characters as I think each one of them has a similar level in the movie. Like the story doesn't focus on them that much compared to Poirot.
Story Flow
The story goes forward, with flashback scenes to certain events shown. Flashback scenes colored in grey-scale. These scenes will tell the story regarding each character's background to uncover this case later on.
Dialogue
All characters speak English (and sometimes French) throughout the movie. There is a scene where an additional character speaks Arabic and it only appeared briefly.
Point of View
This movie tells the story from Hercule Poirot point of view, as we see the story unveiled and revolves around him. We could see that his friend and train director (Bouc) mainly can be seen staying with him throughout the movie. Sometimes there are side characters' point of view too as they told their stories in the flashback scenes.
Conflicts
The conflict actually... simple? But also complicated if we see it from Poirot's PoV. Poirot boarded a train, and during second night on the train, a murder occured, and he was asked by Bouc to solve the case. The movie is based on this conflict only, basically. Later in the end, it was unveiled that all of them cooperated for this murder case. Each of them was involved in this case.
My Review
As viewers, we probably expected that this movie was going to be interesting and will show a lot of clues that viewers also could probably take clues or guessed of "Who killed Ratchett?", right? However... That's not how this movie works. You (as viewer) basically only act as a sole viewer, watching how Poirot tried to solve the case, with limited and unclear hints/clues, then near the middle-third-quarter of the movie, abruptly unveiled his guess to one of the passenger, Debenham, which proceed to a scene where Poirot got shot after by Arbuthnot to protect Debenham. Kinda... wild and confusing. As in... Why suddenly he unveiled everything? How? Also prior to this scene if I remember correctly, he was in doubt because he doesn't seem to be able to solve this case. Yet... He unveiled it after.
Following this scene, each character is now sitting down in Last Supper position, in a cave. After that wrong guess, Poirot then unveiled every spider-web tangled each characters to this murder case. Like... How? And why? And he doesn't even show any sign of hurt after getting shot. Then to close the movie, he decided to cover everything with a white-lie like a hero, then the movie ended, by exposing a sequel/continuation movie after this, entitled "Death on the Nile".
In my defence... I felt... Confused and disappointed, actually. The storyline felt rushed, and didn't nail the book, I think. I think I could also relate to how a lot of reviews on IMDb2, can be seen questioning the decision of this remaking. Sadly, with all of these stars in the movie, with great setting-acting-props-and-sound, the storyline just couldn't live it up. Also throughout the movie I kept doubting myself, did I really forget how the book goes on? Or what? I don't remember the egg-obsession in the early part, or in the Poirot compartment. I don't remember the scene where Poirot gets shot. Nor the part where Poirot decided to cover everything in a white-lie. I kept thinking to myself, "I probably need to read the book again" and "I also need to check another remake of this movie, probably...".
Conclusion
Do I Recommend This Movie?
Hm... No.
I don't know. Time that I spent to watch this movie felt like a waste, probably cause I was expecting a good (or decent, at least?) detective type of movie, which will stimulate my mind to also seeing the pattern, and trying to understand why the deduction later pointed to that suspect. Which usually ended with viewer gasped over plot-twist or the exposé in the end of this type of movie. However... This movie just makes me sighed in the end, as everything felt rushed, and all over the place. Also I don't know if my memories is not that good, but how the story flow through the end also doesn't felt that smooth as the book. Kinda disappointing. I think I will take a look at other version of this title later on.
So for me, I scored this movie as:
🙂 Hmm.........
That's all for now. Thank you for reading this review, and see you in another post. Bye! 👋🏻