And I have a quandary about it. I liked the original Agatha Christie novel, I liked the original movie, and I don’t even mind that they’re making another version, decades later. Murder on the Orient Express is a project that would appeal to the very highest ranks of Hollywood and stage actors… and that would be the problem, wouldn’t it?
How many of them knew?
Moe Lane
PS: I can stop asking myself that question long enough for Thor: Ragnarok and (probably) the Justice League movie. But it’s gonna loom.
All of them.
.
Hollywood has been a cesspool from the very beginning. Do any reading about the early years, and you’ll quickly come to know that.
It has broken through from time to time, but blowback was limited by three major inter-related things.
1) The industry knew their market, and until recently, pandered to it. (Actually, they still do, but the market has changed from the US to prominently foreign markets. Which had given Hollywood license to actively insult much of the domestic market.)
2) Because the audience was getting what they wanted, few were willing to disbelieve the glamour.
3) The nature of information distribution has changed. Very rarely would a scandal become national news, and went it did, was carefully managed by sympathetic outlets. Obviously, the internet killed that. Since then, the issue has been overcoming the signal:noise as various peripheral players attempt to boost their visibility via the “all publicity is good publicity” model and endless minor scandals. (Which in turn makes the public more likely to believe it when a really big one surfaces.)
.
I have popcorn.
I will very likely see this once it is on video, but as much as I like Kenneth Branagh, I doubt it is as good as the 2010 version from the PBS series with David Suchet. That one was outstanding, and had a different enough take on it from the original to make it interesting.
I realize not everyone liked the ending, but I thought it felt very true to the character.
They all knew something. What exactly, and how serious was what they knew, we don’t know.
I’ve seen some fairly awful reviews for it. You might check out a review or two before shelling out the bucks.