You could watch this back to back with director Sidney Lumet's celebrated 1974 version......and go through a point-by-point checklist of everything that's gone wrong in major studio filmmaking in the 43 years between them.
Lumet, never much of a visual stylist, loved great actors giving great performances.....which is why his films remains landmarks in cinema.....
Think again......
After directing CGI-heavy behemoths like Disney's live action "Cinderella" and "Thor", Branagh has fallen down the green-screen rabbit hole, perhaps forever.
He must still think he's directing "Thor".........and the only actor he's serving with any effort......is himself.
Essentially he's turned himself into a half-assed imitator of director Robert Zemeckis......whose films are usually nothing more than a self-congratulatory trumpeting of how cleverly Zemeckis deploys CGI.
As did Lumet, Branagh recruited an up-to-the-minute all star case for his version 'Orient Express'......
But unlike Lumet, who glorified in his cast's work, Branagh leaves his actors stranded.....he has very little interest in them, as either characters or actors.
What the movie's really about: endless CGI landscape compositions, elaborate camerawork that screams, "look at me! look at me!".........and Branagh's show-off, hammy star turn as master sleuth Hercule Poirot.
The rest of the actors and the plot, for that matter, serve only as minor window dressing.
Branagh is so obsessive-compulsive over his CGI, his lengthy tracking shots and his own performance, he completely forgets to edit the film into watchable storytelling. Lacking any pacing whatsoever, the film tortuously drags through its running time like a barely animated zombie corpse.
It makes for a dull, dull, technology-drenched ego-trip.........and we're sick of talking about it already. 1 star (*) and that's only for the valiant work of the neglected ensemble cast.......in this movie, they get snowed in more by Branagh than the weather.
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