Murder on the Orient Express

LANDON ***

I must admit I've never seen the original "Murder on the Orient Express" film, nor have I read Agatha Christie's famous novel the movies are based off of.  So my knowledge of tale is fairly minimal, but I can tell you that I enjoyed my time watching this film.  Kenneth Branagh has crafted a surprisingly investing story about a mysterious murder and about a dozen possible suspects.  It's entertaining enough and Branagh is fantastic in the lead role.  Everything narrows down to a surprisingly emotional conclusion.  Not particularly surprising, but effective all the same.  Even with all of this though, Branagh has this strange method for telling the story.  He stylizes it, and not in a good way.  There's a fair amount of CGI that serves only as a means supplement lazy production.  It ends up making the film feel smaller than it really is.  It also doesn't help that the camerawork is overly ambitious, making the cinematography incredibly nauseating.  With all that said, this is a movie that's worth watching especially if you like murder-mysteries.