 Thanks for checking out this episode of should you watch and this is should you watch murder on the Orient Express? Short answer to that right up front in case people don't want to go through all the reasons If you really had a desire to see this film go ahead and see it once Don't see it in the theater though. You can wait until it's on a movie channel or Netflix or if you want to get a Blu-ray or whatever wait for it because It's good, but not good enough to spend what ten dollars plus at the theater So some positives about the film the base story is a very good base story It's been around for a long time. It's very beloved kind of murder mystery story from Agatha Christie Who originally wrote the novel for it in? 1934 I believe is when it was published So there's nothing wrong with the actual story because it's been around for a long time. Everybody knows it's very highly respected So the base material is good Also, I think that Michael Green the person who ended up adapting the the book for the screenplay I think he did a pretty solid job in that But then again, I actually have not read the book before so I guess I can't say that it's like amazing It came off as as being Coherently written for a script and the dialogue was decent and so Michael Green I think did a good job Michael Green by the way has written a lot of stuff He wrote the screenplay screenplay and I think the story for like Alien Covenant, which I actually haven't seen I actually heard that's not all that great, but he's done some other stuff I think he did like the screenplay for Green Lantern screenplay for There was something else that was kind of big big ish recently that he did but I know he did some for a few episodes of Damn it now I'm forgetting because I looked it up, but Trust me look about Michael Green. He's he has a long list of work that he's done with with writing. So good for him So yeah, I think the script was decent the Actors there are a lot of good actors who they brought in for it and probably my favorite of Who pulled off their roles? Michelle Pfeiffer did quite a good job Daisy Ridley who a lot of people know from Star Wars Force Awakens She did a really good job and Kenneth Branagh who actually also directed this film. He played Hercule Perot the world famous detective in the film and the titular character Not titular character the main character titular character of means in the title, but Kenneth Branagh did a good job in the beginning of the film. I think He came off as overacting a little bit, but as the film went on I felt like he kind of settled down and You know was all was even keel with the acting. He wasn't like too crazy with it By the way, I'm sorry the the light the natural light outside keeps going up and down must be clouds So sorry for that. But anyway, so he Yeah, he did a he did a good job Like I said, I wasn't really feeling him in the beginning. Then he got better at the end So it was good But now for the negatives of the film Oh the one other positive real quick the costuming the costuming was really well done and the set pieces were very good It was very appropriate for its time. It looked good The negatives there was some overacting there was actually a lot of overacting a lot of the characters overacted pretty much almost all of them Except for the three that I that I said is being particularly good There were a few who were I'm sorry something caught my attention outside a Few of them were were like in the middle like did a decent job But some people overact overacted like crazy worst of which was Johnny Depp Johnny Depp's character the way he played that was way over the top Not good at all. I've seen him do that with some other roles recently too. I don't know what's going on but but with since there were so many actors who Were overacting throughout the film I'm wondering if it was their choices or if it was a directorial choice Because like I said Kenneth Branagh was overacting in the beginning of the film and he was a director So he may have kind of asked for that which if that's the case I don't really understand why you would do that. It's kind of weird, but That was one of my main issues was that overacting the other thing is there were some really bad directorial choices with the camera shots Cinema cinematically it looked good but there were a bunch of camera shot choices that just seemed odd to me and It just seemed kind of like oh, let's do something different And so they do something different and they do it in a part of the film where you're trying to like really pay attention and Then whatever camera angle or special shot they use it actually takes your attention away from what's happening because you're just like Oh, that's weird. That's odd. Why are you doing that? Two prime examples that they had one moment where they were looking in like train cars So they shot it from above looking down So all you see is the tops of people's heads pretty much and it's like following them around So like a few of the train cars as they talk That's fine to do like kind of like a quick shot But it was like for a solid like minute and a half two minutes or something and it was just really Distracting and it's just like I can't see much of anything I want to see the people talking to each other so you can see expression You know not just looking down because there wasn't anything all that important that you needed to see it from top down So it just seemed like a weird choice. It took me out of the film I wasn't able to really pay attention what was going on because I was just like this is weird the other one that was really bad was when Hercule pro first gets on to the orient express train and he's walking through all the train cars And you're seeing like some of the other characters as he passes him But it's all done from outside of the train. So you're just seeing him through the windows Well, there are large swaths of metal in between windows and you can't see anything there so you keep having your view obstructed as it's following poor oh and It gets hard to watch fast Because you your eyes like you focus for a second on seeing him walking through it And then you're you're like unfocused because it's a piece of metal obstructing him so you can't see so it's just like this constant like Like do this to yourself and see if you don't feel dizzy eventually It was a terrible idea Terrible shot idea you can do it very quickly like maybe he goes through one car and you do it that way but he went through several cars and it was like that and he's just totally distracting nauseating not good So that was I mean those were kind of the things But would I say that this is a bad movie? No, it's not a bad movie. It's decent. I Mean like I enjoyed it enough mainly because the story was good there was a some good acting in it and The screenplay was written pretty well from what I could tell so I would recommend it for people who really wanted to see it now If you want to see it just because you want the story I would say don't spend your time doing that if you're also a person who's cool with reading Just go get the agatha Christie book murder on the Orient Express and read that because I guarantee the story He's gonna be a lot better that way So I know it's gonna be a lot more of a time commitment But if you're really looking for the story it is a good story So go ahead and check it out that way. Anyway, this is going kind of long So I want to cut it off there, but in the end I guess I can give it like a star rating out of five stars I think I would give it a It's a three. It's a three and I was thinking two and a half because I'm like about it, but Now I'd give it three because it has just enough to knock it over halfway With the with the good acting and and the set pieces and the costuming being really good And and the base material in the screenplay were solid. So Say three stars three stars out of five. Anyway, if you like this, let me know if you didn't like it Also, let me know you can send me an email brutal battle podcast at gmail.com. I'll do more of these Hopefully I'll do more of these should you watch I had done some should you read which were comic book ones But I haven't followed up on that but mainly because they weren't getting a whole lot of hits. So You know check those out and if the hits on them go up then maybe I'll Do some more but this might be more popular. Anyway, thank you everyone for checking this out and until next time keep it brutal