I reread Murder on the Orient Express over the summer, after initial trailers had already dropped. This lead to me to picture the cast as I was reading, imagining Kenneth Branaugh and company darting through cabins and slender train passages uncovering clues. So in a way, when I left the theater, it felt like I was leaving a movie I had seen before.

So where does that leave us when looking at the film independently? The performances were great, but considering the caliber of the ensemble, it was just as expected. The worst I really have to say about this is it was just exactly as I would have anticipated. I knew the story, and the movie stuck to the book almost religiously. In the interest of adding some action, there were a few brief departures from the train into the freezing exterior, but nothing that would stray from the integrity of Christie’s novel.

This is by no means a bad movie. Every actor was decent and this is inherently an interesting story, but beyond that, there was nothing exceptional about it at all. If it wasn’t for some interesting shots, in particular the finding of the body overhead, I may have felt like I had wasted my time. But at the end of the day, I would normally rather have a passable movie based on an excellent book in theaters than some other trash, but 2017 has been a pretty incredible year in the cinema, so unfortunately, Murder was left wanting. 5/10