Movie Review Murder on the Orient Express

Murder on the Orient Express (2017) 

Directed by Kenneth Branagh 

Written by Michael Green 

Starring Kenneth Branagh, Tom Bateman, Penelope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Josh Gad, Johnny Depp 

Release Date November 10th, 2017 

Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) is the most famous detective in the world. It is 1935 and Poirot is leaving Israel, having solved a crime that likely prevented a religious genocide. His work is that important, apparently. Poirot hopes for some rest and relaxation but unfortunately, he’s been called back to London on a matter of grave importance. The fastest way to travel in 1934 is the train known as the Orient Express, a bullet train from Istanbul all the way to Paris.

Misfortune follows the great detective, however, as he meets Mr. Ratchett (Johnny Depp) on the train and quickly deduces his criminality. Ratchett wants to hire Poirot to watch his back on the train ride but Poirot declines as he knows Mr. Ratchett is not who he claims to be. The true identity of Mr. Ratchett becomes the hook on which the rest of the plot of Murder on the Orient Express hangs. A murder occurs the night after Poirot and Ratchett’s tete a tete and Poirot is pressed into action to deduce the killer.

The list of suspects is long but as luck would have it, the train has been felled by an avalanche, leaving Poirot plenty of time for chatty snooping. Among the suspects are Ratchett’s cheating accountant MacQueen (Josh Gad), Ratchett’s servant Masterman (Derek Jacobi), a wealthy Princess (Dame Judi Dench), her maid (Olivia Colman), a German scientist (Willem Dafoe), a doctor (Leslie Odom Jr.), a governess (Daisy Ridley), a missionary (Penelope Cruz), a dancer and his ailing wife, and a husband-seeking missile named Miss Hubbard (Michele Pfeiffer).

Complicating matters further for Detective Poirot is that each and every one of the passengers I just mentioned are lying. Agatha Christie was a master of this sort of plot, navigating it with tantalizing detail. She, some have claimed, perfected the red herring and in Murder on the Orient Express, she brilliantly navigated a full sea of red herring. That director Kenneth Branagh evokes Christie’s legend is the true charm of the new film version of the legendary novel.

Find my full length review in the Geeks Community on Vocal

Movie Review A Haunting in Venice

A Haunting in Venice (2023) 

Directed by Kenneth Branagh 

Written by Michael Green 

Starring Kenneth Branagh, Tina Fey, Kelly Reilly, Jamie Dornan, Michelle Yeoh, Jude Hill 

Release Date September 15th, 2023 

Published 

I want to like A Haunting in Venice, but I just can't. I've written and rewritten this review several times, each with a different take on the movie. I tried to find what I liked about the movie and leaned into that for a while. Then I went hard on the movie and tore it up and erased that. I don't know why I am struggling with a movie that is not really so complicated as to require such mental machinations. But here we are with a film critic having seen a movie and still trying to decide if he liked it or not. Do I like A Haunting in Venice? Yes or No?  

A Haunting in Venice returns Kenneth Branagh behind the camera into the role of famed detective Hercule Poirot. In this adventure, Poirot is several years retired from his experience in Death on the Nile. Now living in Venice, Poirot has hired a former police detective, Vitale (Riccardo Scamarcio), to keep away those that would draw him back into the detective role he's trying to leave behind. And yet, Vitale makes way for one of Poirot's old friends, Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey) to get in to see him. Oliver is the author who created the legend of Poirot by basing her bestsellers on his cases. 

Naturally, she has an interest in getting her friend back to solving murders and she's got just the thing for him. On this night, Halloween night in Venice, she's attending a seance. She intrigues Poirot by admitting that though she's a skeptic, she can't seem to figure out how famed psychic Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh) does what she does. Oliver wants Poirot to help her debunk Reynolds or confirm that there is something real to her and thus a confirmation of something beyond life. Poirot dismisses her notions of the fantastic and agrees to debunk the psychic. 

Attending the seance alongside Oliver, Poirot, and Poirot's security man, are a rogue's gallery of potential murder suspects, per usual for a Poirot mystery. First, there is the host of the event. a former opera singer and celebrity, Roweena Drake (Kelly Reilly). Roweena set up this event on the notion that Reynolds could contact her late daughter, Alicia, who died under mysterious circumstances a year before. She's invited her family doctor, Leslie Ferrier (Jamie Dorner) and he has brought his young son, Leopold (Jude Hill). Already on hand is Roweena's maid and caretaker, Olga (Camille Coltin), and uninvited but arriving regardless is Alicia's former fiancee, Maxime (Kyle Allen). 

Though Leopold is excluded, for obvious reasons, the rest will gather in Alicia's bedroom as Reynolds attempts to contact Alicia. In the process, Poirot will expose Reynolds as a fraud, survive an attempt on his life, and then Reynolds will end up dead. Her death is the true catalyst for the film's central mystery, one that will grow to encompass at least one more body and connect back to Alicia's death, tying everything up in a neat little bow. It's all very clean and efficient and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that except, if you're like me, and you guess the plot at hand early on, the fun drains out of the proceedings quickly. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Movie Review Dunkirk

Dunkirk (2017)

Directed by Christopher Nolan 

Written by Christopher Nolan 

Starring Fionn Whitehead, Kenneth Branagh, Jack Lowden, Barry Keoghan, Harry Styles, Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, Cillian Murphy

Release Date July 21st, 2017

With The Dark Knight trilogy and Inception, director Christopher Nolan has ascended to that rarefied air of directors who can sell a movie with his name alone. Nolan now stands shoulder to shoulder with fellow relative newcomers J.J. Abrams and Joss Whedon and the original superstar director, Steven Speilberg.

The proof comes with the release of Dunkirk, Nolan's latest film and one with a minimum of star-power, rough, non-commercial subject matter, and a World War II setting that has rarely been the home of four quadrant hits without the back up of major stars like Tom Hanks or John Wayne. If Dunkirk is to succeed it will be the director of Batman who makes it happen.

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media

Movie Review Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) 

Directed by Christopher Columbus 

Written by Steve Kloves 

Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Kenneth Branagh, Robbie Coltrane 

Release Date November 15th, 2002 

Published November 14th, 2002 

There is an unspoken competition between the Harry Potter film series and the Lord Of The Rings trilogy. While there are numerous other movie franchises, few match the scope and scale of these two series. The competition has nothing to do with box office—though that should be a close race. It has to do with quality filmmaking; which series will be more artistically satisfying? The first of the Potter series was strong, if not memorable, while the first of the Rings achieved everything it set out to achieve until its awful abrupt ending. 

That film established its characters, its universe and its rules, creating a good deal of anticipation for the next two films in the trilogy. If the original Potter film wasn't as successful in those respects, it was through no lack of trying. In its second outing, the Potter series flies out of the box with all the magic and wonder of classic Hollywood filmmaking and modern technology. Harry Potter and the Chamber Of Secrets throws down the artistic gauntlet to the The Two Towers and sets the bar high on quality filmmaking.

As we rejoin the story of the world's most famous boy wizard, young Harry (Daniel Radcliffe, aging rapidly) is back home with his Muggle (i.e. non-wizard) guardians. Locked in his bedroom and badly mistreated, Harry cannot wait to return to his real home at Hogwarts Academy. Harry is a little down, however, as he has not heard anything from his close friends Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson). 

As it turns out, Harry's correspondence with his friends has been interrupted by an elf named Dobby who comes to Harry with a warning: Do not return to Hogwarts because your life and those of your friends are in great danger if you do. Undeterred, Harry has no other wish but to return to Hogwarts, and when his friends show up at his home to bust him out and bring him to Hogwarts he literally jumps at the chance.

Once back in the wizard realm he is quickly reunited with his old friend, the giant Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) and comes to meet his newest Professor, the pompous and overbearing Gilderoy Lockhart (Kenneth Branagh). Harry is also quickly reunited with his Hogwarts rival Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) and Draco's equally slimy father Lucius (Jason Isaacs). It isn't long after Harry returns to Hogwarts that strange things begin to happen. First Harry is nearly killed in a quidditch match and then he finds himself accused of paralyzing a cat and scrolling in blood that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened.

Thankfully for Harry, the school headmaster, Professor Dumbledore (Richard Harris), believes Harry did not commit the crime. Dumbledore knows more than he lets on but plays it close to the vest. As if illustrating Harry's growth into puberty and beyond, he begins to discover new powers, including a rather frightening ability to speak to snakes, a power usually restricted to those who are members of the Slytherin House. Harry is also hearing voices that no one else can hear— a trait that is a little strange, even for a wizard. After a friend is struck paralyzed by the entity that also froze the cat, Harry and his friends can't help but investigate, and find out what the Chamber of Secrets is and whether it has anything to do with the Malfoys, Slytherin, or worse.

There is a deeper story with the Malfoy family who make clear in early scenes their dislike of Muggles and especially wizards descended from Muggle parents like Hermione. The allusion to Nazism is obvious but not overdone. Draco is obviously the model of Aryan nazi youth, and this sets up a metaphor that I'm sure will play itself out in the sequels to come.

One advantage to never having read the books is that I'm excited to not know what's going to happen next, and director Chris Columbus does an excellent job of foreshadowing the future of Harry and his friends— especially the future relationship between Harry and Hermione who seem destined to be more than friends.

It would be easy to underestimate the performance of Daniel Radcliffe, since the kid really is so comfortable in the role he makes it look very easy. However, it can't be easy spending most of the film talking to things that actually aren't there, as Radcliffe does. Be they elves, giant spiders or ghosts, Radcliffe's performance, combined with state-of-the-art effects and editing, bring the film to life in a vibrant and exciting way.

In a wonderful coda to an amazing career Richard Harris leaves us with a wonderful performance. Putting aside the sympathy votes, Harris' performance is honestly Oscar worthy, as is the performance of the newest addition to the series, Kenneth Branagh. With energy and bravado to spare, Branagh's egotistical, cowardly Professor Gilderoy Lockhart is a comic whirlwind who earns laughs with simply a smile. Branagh's performance is truly delightful.

Director Chris Columbus will turn over the reins of the Potter series to Alfonso Cuaron (Y Tu Mama Tambien), and it is sad to see him go. The director, who was a controversial choice the first time around, really proved himself on this film. Though, for me, the original wasn't the winning concoction so many others enjoyed, it did show that Columbus had a touch for staging and effects. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Columbus fills out the Potter universe in spectacular fashion. Hogwarts becomes a fully realized place, almost a character in itself. Columbus's expertise in staging and effects here combines itself with a compelling story and performances, to make for a truly magical film. The Two Towers has a lot to live up to if it hopes to match the quality of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Movie Review: Valkyrie

Valkyrie (2008) 

Directed by Bryan Singer 

Written by Christopher McQuarrie, Nathan Alexander 

Starring Tom Cruise, Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Terence Stamp

Release Date December 25th, 2008 

Published December 24th, 2008 

Why? Why did Bryan Singer, Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise attempt to turn Valkyrie, the story of a failed attempt to kill Hitler in 1944, into a suspense thriller? As stated in my brief description, it's a FAILED attempt to kill Hitler. Anyone who thinks that is a spoiler needs a history class and not a trip to the movies. The choice to frame the story of German hero Claus Von Stauffenberg as a thriller is a damning choice that dooms Valkyrie from beginning to end.

Tom Cruise essays the role of Klaus Von Stauffenberg as a man who was already disillusioned with Hitler's Germany before he was approached about killing the Fuhrer. Having been sent to North Africa to fight on a losing front of Hitler's war expansion, Stauffenberg urged a higher ranking official to contravene orders and get the soldiers out of Africa.

Before he can give the order the higher ranking officer is killed and Stauffenberg is badly wounded. He lost his right eye and right hand in the attack and was returned to Berlin. There he is approached by Major-General Tresckow about joining a group of Generals and politicians who want to overthrow Hitler.

They think they can get the job done politically. Stauffenberg however, has a more permanent idea. He and others advocate the idea that Hitler must die if there is to be change in Germany. And, he even has a political plan as a backup. It's called operation Valkyrie and if executed perfectly it could allow for an orderly change of power once Hitler is dead.

We know going in that Stauffenberg was executed for attempting to kill Hitler with a bomb at the Fuhrer's Wolf's Lair hideout. The complicated plot was ingenious and the resistance lead by Stauffenberg has been deified by those in Germany desperate for the rest of the world to know that not all Germans followed in lockstep with the evil dictator.

There is more than enough drama in the ideas behind Stauffenberg and company's plot to make an interesting, historic epic. Unfortunately, the path chosen by those involved in the movie Valkyrie is to make a thriller based on the timing and execution of the Valkyrie plot, the one we already know fails. Worse yet, the failure is a piece of forced dramatics involving the weak will of one of the conspirators. 

How much of what we see is history and what is fiction is unknown but what is onscreen fails to be thrilling, suspenseful or even modestly compelling. I am one of the rare few admitted big fans of Tom Cruise. It has become quite fashionable to despise the former biggest star on the planet. I do not subscribe to that fashion. I think Cruise is one of the most charismatic and compelling leading men in Hollywood history.

That makes Valkyrie all the harder for me to watch. To play the Teutonic Stauffenberg Cruise dials down his most compelling aspect. He drowns his charismatic persona in a pool of dense concentration and the tightest sphincter this side of Nurse Ratchet. Generally, Cruise does uptight better than anyone. However, the schtick as in Jerry Maguire or Vanilla Sky is going from being uptight to allowing himself to lose control and go with the flow. Valkyrie calls for Cruise to be intense and stay that way and quickly that becomes stifling.

With his charisma dialed back Cruise's intensity becomes a serene mask of seriousness that just isn't suitable to him. It's the kind of ferocious inner fire that an actor like Joaquin Phoenix exudes with every breath. Cruise is more effective when he mixes aggravation with charm. Stauffenberg as written is charmless and Cruise is ill-suited.

Bryan Singer is too good a director for the film to fail in craftsmanship and there is nothing wrong with the construction of Valkyrie. Where the film fails is in the choice of trying to make it a suspense thriller. It's a simple question - how can you have suspense and thrills when you already know how everything turns out.

As Stauffenberg races from the Wolf's Lair thinking he has killed Hitler we aren't breathing heavy as he is because we know he failed. The scene is tragic but only in our minds. It's as if Singer and McQuarrie don't know it's tragic. To pretend that the outcome isn't known is an act of foolishness that undermines the tragedy and drama of the Stauffenberg plot.