It was more confusing told than the “original”, imo. The original makes a much better job at establishing the characters and their parts and how they are related to the Armstrong’s... here it seemed a bit forcefed with this Armstrong tragedy and their so-called setup with the uniform, the knife in the back, chasing that lawyer/auditor etc was confusing. Why was he running and burning those documents, if not just to muddy our (as in the audience) perception? No way, would a shared Killer behave as he did then... also the dancing couple was sort of forgotten and then added near the end... done better in the original.
I even felt the Armstrong story was not very well implemented in the original either though ... better indeed, but even in the original, this parallel story seemed oddly out of place until the big reveal... idk, it could have been done better then and now.
When we have the final reveal I think in the original it all falls in to place in the best Agatha Christie way... it all makes sense... here the reveal came much sooner and in thunks, I felt. The final supper scene was no surprise and near pointless to the general viewer, and that is a humongous fail it the story telling... and also, what was the point of his empty gun? Not so elegant.
I get why he wanted to spin it differently and I like that even he and his final motivation had a connection to this Armstrong story... but I get your friend.
Ps: for all my piss above I must say that I enjoyed it and I hope for Nile version too..
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PrimeMinisterX (8321)
6 years ago
What's interesting is that the '74 version is only 14 minutes longer than the '17 version. Sidney Lumet did not have a whole lot more time to work with, but he seemed to be better at using the time he had.
The Armstrong prologue in the Lumet version seems weirdly disconnected for much of the movie but then all of that comes into focus and you understand later what that was all about.
And as you say, Lumet also was better at establishing the characters.
It seems like Branagh either needed more time or he needed to cut out some of his personal additions, like the relatively long prologue that establishes the Poirot character or the action scenes. Probably more time. Even just those extra 14 minutes that Lumet had to work with I think would've helped a lot.
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HAL 9010 (904)
6 years ago
Challenges:
1: Implement Armstrong’s better or more naturally: I think Kenneth knew that this was a weak point , and I like how he himself was implemented to their tragedy more... sadly the story was still oddly placed in the mix. So this challenge was failed and yet his approach had interesting spins.... I do not know if this could be done better, but I feel this is the biggest challenge in the story and bringing it to the silver screen... in the original it worked better but still it forced us to think conspiracy even before the the first scene and I dare say the story is better if the viewer has an open mind until the mystery slowly unfolds?
2: character introduction and parts in the story: done very well in the “original”. Here he downplayed them and bulked them together and this was a fail. I agree with you, he should have just used more minutes. And cut some action scenes... I liked the intro though.
3: the big reveal: he wanted to reinvent the wheel. He wanted to wauu us with the last supper scene and he wanted even Hercule Poirot to have doubt until the final moments... except we all knew what was up by then and the story was too strong on this (I think) so he failed. Should he have copied the original? Too easy perhaps, but it would have worked better.
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Rorikon (16456)
6 years ago
I enjoyed it as well. I'll be sure to check out the Murder on the Orient Express (1974) version.
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