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(Nov. 17)

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ScheduleScheduleCurrently playing

Murder on the Orient Express(English)

——————————————Geostorm (English)

——————————————Seventy-seven Days

(Mandarin)——————————————

Thor: Ragnarok (English)——————————————

Kingsman: The Golden Circle(English)

——————————————Blade Runner 2049

(English)

Murder on the Orient Express《东方快车谋杀案》

Starring: Tom Bateman, Lucy Boynton, Kenneth Branagh, Olivia Colman, Penélope Cruz, Johnny Depp Director: Kenneth Branagh

Kenneth Branagh as detective Hercule Poirot in “Murder on the Orient Express.” File photo

WHILE “Murder on the Orient Express” may see master detective Hercule Poirot tackle

his most challenging case, director-star Kenneth Branagh doesn’t prove comparably formidable, delivering a fi nely manicured but decidedly uninvolving adaptation of Agatha Christie’s celebrated whodunit.

Populated by an international cast packed into stylish costumes amidst a stale air of cosmopolitan sophisti-cation, this stagey mystery lacks the fl amboyant electricity and riveting tension that have been the hallmarks of previous versions. Much of the fi lm’s problems are encapsulated in Branagh’s performance, which is too self-amused to really capture what’s so compelling about one of fi ction’s fi nest crime-fi ghters.

Releasing Nov. 10 in China, “Murder” will benefi t from audience familiarity with the Christie novel — to say nothing of its different adap-tations, most notably Sidney Lumet’s 1974 fi lm and the 2010 British TV version starring David Suchet. Here, a star-studded cast including Johnny Depp, Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench, Daisy Ridley and Michelle Pfeiffer will only sweeten the deal for some audiences, who may gravitate to this Fox offering over frenetic blockbust-ers such as “Thor: Ragnarok.”

Set in 1934, the fi lm stars Branagh

as Poirot; a sharp, quirky Belgian detective who is supremely confi dent in his peerless skill at observation and deduction. He’ll be tested, however, after boarding the Orient Express in Istanbul; after an avalanche strands the train along its route, a passenger is found murdered — leading Poirot to the realization that the killer must be a fellow traveller.

As with his most lavish Shake-speare adaptations (“Hamlet” and “Love’s Labour’s Lost”), Branagh fl aunts a theatrical fl air, emphasiz-ing the material’s inherently old-fashioned qualities. Rather than worrying about modernizing the text, Branagh gives us a movie that seems from an earlier time. His army of below-the-line talent lend the train, its passengers and their wardrobe a romantic, nostalgic opulence that’s proudly, warmly retro. But Branagh, in his direction and especially in his performance, can’t help but overdo the cheeky artifi ciality, which keeps “Murder” feeling more like a well-designed exercise than a delectable thriller.

For decades, Poirot has been beloved; in part, because of his amusing peculiarity, which has given actors the ability to interpret him in dissimilar ways. Whereas Albert Finney played him as an awkward but relentless pit bull in the 1974 fi lm, Suchet gave audiences a sub-

tler, more soulful take. On the whole, Branagh’s “Murder” tries splitting the difference between those two earlier adaptations — borrowing the extravagant accents and page-turning glee of Lumet’s fi lm and the somber moral reckoning of the Suchet edi-tion — but his Poirot is distractingly adorable and lightweight. Branagh also fl ashes a knowingly ludicrous moustache (which was how Christie envisioned the detective) that ends up undercutting the character’s gravitas and brilliance.

Branagh and screenwriter Michael Green tinker with some of the story’s iconic suspects. In this “Murder,” for instance, the Swedish missionary Greta (played by Ingrid Bergman, who won an Oscar for the 1974 version) has been changed to Pilar Estravados (Cruz), a fi gure from another Christie work but without all that character’s specifi c qualities. Along those lines, the fi lmmakers try to throw in some surprises to this oft-told tale while maintaining the most memorable sequences and revelations.

Shot on 65mm fi lm — another indi-cation of the movie’s old-school bona fi des — this thriller has a stately pace with an eye for period detail, both in terms of décor and in its portrait of a society.

The movie is now being screened in Shenzhen. (SD-Agencies)