Murder On The Orient Express Review: 6 Ups & 6 Downs

4. The Mystery Lacks Intrigue

Though there's no arguing against the esteem of Agatha Christie's 1934 source novel, Michael Green's script fails to adequately tease the fun and intrigue out of it, ensuring that the central murder mystery just isn't that intriguing.

Perhaps part of the problem is that contemporary audiences have been exposed to narratives such as this so often that it needs that little extra something to actually click nowadays, but with Green and Branagh being so rigidly committed to honouring the source material, it feels pretty low-energy at times.

This is where the film's misuse of its stellar cast again becomes a problem: with a stronger treatment, the characters would've come across as full-bodied and interesting rather than the fairly cardboard archetypes that they are.