My favoured Poirot is David Suchet; he is just so right for the role. However, the quality of his recent features has been deteriorating fast (not due to his portrayal, it is the quality of the features themselves that is slipping), what with the loss of the regular directors and crew members from his earlier days in the seasons (the seasons as opposed to the individual features).
Who else thinks that for the last several Poirot features, all of the actors have become far too heavily made up, with the stuff literally plastered on? Note also, Poirot's moustache is shrinking to a ridiculous size.
With this deterioration, I have to admit that I far and away enjoyed Peter Ustinov's Death on the Nile, rather than David Suchet's remake: this original one is so much more fun, and makes much better use of the locations—even if it is less true to the book.
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kelia-1
20 years ago
I just saw the remake and I must say that I by far prefered the 1978 version. also prefer Peter Ustinov to David Suchet.While I do like Suchet as Poirot I just don't think he was up to the task this time.I think Ustinov played the role with more joy and he played a more approchable Poirot. The cast had little to do.Interior lighting was bad and they did not take full advantage of the great location. Finally some of the supporting cast wasn't all that good -mainly the doctor played by Jack Warden in the 1978 version, is nondiscript in the 2004 version same for the lawyer in 1978 played by George Kennedy, this time played by David Soul has almost nothing to do, and the role played by Olivia Hussey in 1978 and was involved with the chatacter of Furguson, Hussey played the role with sweetness and grace this time around the actress that played her forgive me I can't remember her name played her as an idiot. To be fair it was a badly written charater.
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sposocke
19 years ago
I've seen both too and must say I was pretty disappointed with the remake. For one I'm not doubting Suchet's acting skills but for me he never comes close to Peter Ustinov who I always liked better in that role. Which is one of the main reasons I disliked "Murder on the Orient Express" think that was Finney though. I also think the acting was pretty poor in the remake, I missed the original score, David Niven as Colonel Race, the side plots seemed a little annoying too since Suchet's Poirot was godlike and solved everything in a mere seconds. Just about everything annoyed me really since I constantly had the '78 original in the back of my mind. What I did like was the steamer that was bigger and more interesting, thereby making the constant running abouts on deck more credible. Oh and I liked the new Jackie, I think the original one played her part better but the new Jackie was quite pretty but she is also the reason why some might actually see through the plot, since in the original it seemed unthinkable that Simon should leave the beautiful and rich Linette for Jackie in the remake that isn't so unlikely.
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