An unnecessary remake

The 2017 Murder on the Orient Express is a relatively fun but completely unnecessary remake of the 1974 film based on the Agatha Christie novel. No spoilers here, in fact, no discussion of plot at all since I'm aiming this review at people who already know the story. My Poirot background: I have not read the original novel, though I have read a couple Poirot novels; I like the 1974 film quite a bit but I'm not crazy about Albert Finney's take on Poirot; my favorite Poirot is Peter Ustinov--yes, he may not be very faithful to Christie's characterization, but he's fun and the movies he stars in (Evil Under the Sun and Death on the Nile) are good. Kenneth Branagh, who both stars and directs, is very good as Poirot, giving a more energetic and thoughtful performance than Finney's rather stiff take on the detective in the earlier film. 

The visuals and effects here are nice, but the plot is presented in a somewhat more convoluted way than before--if I hadn't already seen the first movie, I would gotten a bit lost early on--and the star power quotient is far dimmer in this version, though the actors all acquit themselves fairly well. The 1974 film had Lauren Bacall, Sean Connery, Vanessa Redgrave, Anthony Perkins, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, and Ingrid Bergman, for heaven's sake, and Branagh doesn't really try to compete with that line-up; the biggest names here, in addition to Branagh, are Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Judi Dench, and Penelope Cruz. But everyone is fine, including the up-and-comers Daisy Ridley and Leslie Odom Jr. A couple of brief action scenes have been added to open things up beyond the train cars, as well as an elaborate (and to my mind, tedious) opening sequence set in Jerusalem. The final suspect roundup is set outside the snowbound train, in a chilly tunnel, to good effect. Watching this version is harmless--it will not cause you to forget the original, nor will it seem bad enough to make you regret having seen it. And Branagh's over-the-top mustache is not as ridiculous or irritating as it seems in the still photos I had seen in publicity material.