Murder on the Orient Express

On Tuesday, I saw Murder on the Orient Express, starring Johnny Depp and Michelle Pfeiffer.

A story that has survived since Agatha Christie's book of the same name was published in 1934, this Murder may have been better off left in the past. With an all-star cast and a star director (Kenneth Branagh), it was almost doomed to fail. And unfortunately, fail it did.

The mystique and character of a Christie novel is admittedly hard to bring to life, but you'd think with such a talented bunch it would happen. It didn't.

Instead of truly "wondering" who committed this heinous act on a glamorous train filled with people of status, the audience spends time hoping something—the train, the plot, the dialogue—will speed up. The quiet, slow pace isn't suspense-building (as it may have been intended); instead it's nerve-wracking.

The cinematography is beautiful, and the actors do their parts well, of course. It just wasn't enough to save it (or the victim) in the end.

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