Review: Sherlock Holmes (2009)

In general Sherlock Holmes stories that aren't based on something Doyle wrote are never much good. This is the exception to the rule.

Sherlock Holmes is a 2009 film that takes some of Doyle's characters and puts them in an original plot. It's full of references to other Holmes stories, and in some ways is more faithful to the books' versions of the characters than a lot of actual adaptations. It was followed by a 2011 sequel, Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, and apparently a third film is planned. Considering the sequel is almost ten years old, I'll believe there'll be a third film when it's in theatres and not before.

I've heard of several actors, but I only recognised three:

Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark in the MCU) as Sherlock (of all people!)
Mark Strong (Mr. Knightley in Emma 1996) as Lord Blackwood

Eddie Marsan (Mr. Pancks in Little Dorrit 2008) as Inspector Lestrade

From the beginning it's clear this isn't going to be a typical Holmes film. It starts with Holmes and Watson capturing Blackwood during an evil ritual and attempted murder. The first time I watched it I had to pause the video to remind myself it wasn't meant to be a faithful adaptation and there have been far worse and weirder Holmes films. Eventually I managed to suspend my disbelief and watched the whole film without complaining (much) about inaccuracies.

Blackwood's pretend magic powers are much less ridiculous than they seemed at first. The Victorian era -- and Arthur Conan Doyle himself -- was obsessed with the occult. So apart from a raised eyebrow or two I had no trouble with that. What I found hardest to accept was Sherlock himself. Robert Downey Jr. looks, sounds and acts nothing like the books' Holmes. There were times when I wondered why they named his character "Sherlock Holmes" instead of just inventing a new character and making the film a historical mystery instead of a pseudo-adaptation.

Yet to my surprise I actually enjoyed the film. Yes, it's weird. Yes, Arthur Conan Doyle would probably be furious if he saw it. But in spite of all that it's a surprisingly good film. Whatever else can be said of it, it's certainly much better than Sherlock. (Admittedly it would be hard to be worse.)

As long as you don't expect much and keep reminding yourself it's nowhere near a faithful adaptation, you'll probably enjoy this film.

Is it available online?: I doubt it.

Rating: 7/10

(Not Really a) Review: First Impressions of Poirot

When I looked for period dramas I haven't seen yet, this series appeared in almost every list. At first I was reluctant to start a series where every episode is a different story. Now I've finally got around to starting it, and I wish I'd done it earlier.

Poirot (also called Agatha Christie's Poirot; apparently someone thought there are so many characters named Poirot that viewers might think it's based on some other author's works) is a long-running series that adapts all of Agatha Christie's stories about the title character. Yes, all of them. Unsurprisingly it lasted over twenty years, from 1989 to 2013.

I've never read any of the Poirot novels, and my only previous knowledge of the character was from Murder on the Orient Express. So while I know every episode is about Poirot solving a mystery, I don't know anything about the cases. Turns out that's a good thing. I've watched the first four episodes of the first series, and every time I waited with bated breath to learn whodunnit and why they did it. Only once have I correctly guessed who the criminal is before the case is solved.

I love almost everything about this series. It's unexpectedly funny; Hastings' obsession with tennis and the running joke about Poirot's uncomfortable shirt collars are just two of the things that made me laugh. The cases themselves always end with an unexpected solution. And of course for period drama fans there's the 1930s setting. So I can safely say that this is one series I'll keep watching.

Review: The Secret Adversary

Finally read an Agatha Christie novel! True, it's not one of her better-known ones. I read it mainly because I couldn't find any copies of the better-known ones.

The Secret Adversary is one of Agatha Christie's earliest works, first published in 1922. It's been adapted into a silent film, two miniseries, a graphic novel, and at least two stage productions.

The main story is set shortly after World War I ended. Tommy and Tuppence are desperate for money, so they decide to start a business: "The Young Adventurers". Almost immediately they get involved in the case of a missing girl, some very important papers, and a criminal mastermind.

It's easy to tell this book was written by an author just starting her career. The story is often rushed, occasionally confusing, and generally shows the signs of an inexperienced writer. (Though it's still miles better than my early works. To start with, it's actually readable.)

The reveal of the villain's true identity is easy to see coming. I guessed it about half-way through, shortly before Mrs. Vandermeyer killed herself. And when Mr. Brown finally confirms who he is, the confrontation is over in a few paragraphs. Not to mention that I was left wondering why he bothered revealing his identity at all. It's a bit too reminiscent of cartoon villains gloating and laughing evilly just so the hero has the chance to foil their plots. Honestly, before his suicide I half expected Mr. Brown to shout "Curses! Foiled again!" or "I could have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids!".

If you want an entertaining and short novel to read, try this one! Just ignore the contrived events and implausible coincidences.

Is it available online?: Yes, on Gutenberg.

Rating: 7/10.

Review: The Haunting (novel)

Usually a title gives clues to a book's genre. Not this one. Despite what you might think, this book is not a horror story. It's barely even a ghost story.

The Haunting is a 2011 novel by Alan Titchmarsh. It's much more a mystery novel than a ghost story. It has two plots, set two hundred years apart: the mysterious disappearance of a servant in the early 1800s, and a man researching his ancestors in 2010.

Like most of the books I read at work, I picked this one up mainly because it was there and I had nothing else to read. I expected a spooky mystery with plenty of ghosts. Well, there is a mystery. And there is a ghost -- though it appears so rarely that it might as well not be there at all. But "spooky" is the last word I'd use to describe it.

The most interesting part of the novel is the historical plot. The modern-day plot is frankly dull. I lost interest and skipped most of it. I cared much more about learning what happened to Anne than about reading yet more of Harry's angst. But even the historical plot becomes predictable and maudlin towards the end. As for the twist at the end, I saw it coming as soon as I realised Harry would inevitably make some discovery about Merrily Flint's parents. The least believable part was how almost everyone in the modern-day plot was somehow related to the people in the historical part. It was like reading a Dickens novel without any of the things that make Dickens novels so good.

Honestly I would have liked this book better if it had a different title. A rose by any other name may smell sweet, but a book with a misleading title is always going to be disappointing. If the title hadn't implied this was a ghost story I wouldn't have expected one.

There are worse books. There are also better ones. I didn't hate this book, but I won't reread it.

Is it available online?: No.

Rating: 4/10.

Review: The Historian (novel)

After reading a few other reviews I expected this novel would be good. Unfortunately I was disappointed.

The Historian is a 2005 novel by Elizabeth Kostova. It's a mixture of so many genres that it's impossible to list them all. Most importantly it's one of the many works that combine the fictional Count Dracula created by Bram Stoker with the historical figure Vlad the Impaler.

Within a few chapters the main problem with the book becomes all too clear. There are three different narrators. All of them use the first person. None have distinct characters or voices. It took me ages to figure out who was speaking when. Very confusing!

Related to that is the complete lack of any memorable characters. Everyone is just a puppet acting out what the author tells them to, with no individuality or even personality. Not even the first person narration makes them seem real; they all have the exact same outlook and style of writing.

But by far the worst offence is the portrayal of Dracula. People have conflated Count Dracula with his historical namesake for decades -- with very mixed results. This is definitely one of the less successful examples. The book completely fails to make him a convincing threat as either a vampire or a human. He made so little impression on me that I can't even remember what his goal was. And as for his apparent death, it's one of the biggest anti-climaxes I've ever read. If all it took to "kill" him was to distract him while someone shoots him, why wasn't he killed years ago?

From beginning to end this book is confusing, meandering, and boring. A thorough disappointment.

Is it available online?: I don't care enough to check.

Rating: 1/10.

Review: Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

Welcome to the first review of 2020! Most people, for obvious reasons, watched this version before the 2017 one. Many insist this is the better adaptation. Do I agree with those people? ...Yes and no.

I prefer this title-card to the 2017 film's. It's much more fitting for a period drama.

This is the first film version of Agatha Christie's novel. Incidentally, there were only two adaptations of her works that she liked, and this was one of them.

Like the 2017 film, this one has an all-star cast. Like many films from years before I was born, I recognise many of the names but haven't seen any of their other films. There were only two who I had seen before:

Ingrid Bergman (Alicia in Notorious 1946) as Greta Ohlsson

Sean Connery (Henry Jones Sr. in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) as Colonel Arbuthnot

The film starts with the kidnapping that sets the entire plot in motion. Unfortunately, the way it's filmed makes the characters' movements bizarrely puppet-like. People don't walk normally; they jump around. Most distracting.

Thank goodness the next scene is filmed more normally. There's no sign of Poirot solving a crime in Israel. (Was that an invention of the 2017 film?) We go straight to Poirot waiting for a ferry.

LOL at that poor man who tried to pronounce Arbuthnot's name 😄 The relationship between Arbuthnot and Miss Debenham is much more overt in this version. I wasn't expecting them to practically run at each other and start kissing.

The train station and the Orient Express itself are much less elaborate than in the 2017 film. Goats right next to the train? That's an accident waiting to happen!

Where are Health and Safety when you need them?

Mrs. Hubbard's complaints made me giggle 😄 Who wants ice in drinking water anyway?

For some reason Bouc is renamed Bianchi. I can't see why they made such an unnecessary change. And Poirot has another helper, Dr. Constantine. Apparently he was in the novel but removed from the 2017 film.

Like many films from the 70s (and 80s) the colour is somehow... "faded" isn't quite the right word. It's as if there simply are no bright colours in the film. And the picture is not quite grainy, but also not as clear as in more recent films. (Or older films, for that matter; I've never seen this in films from the 40s and 50s.) It must be a problem with the cameras used at the time; it also pops up in Sense and Sensibility (1971) and Pride and Prejudice (1980). Quite a disappointment when compared to the 2017 film's beautiful visuals.

LOL at Ratchett running off under cover of darkness 😆 Poirot's confusion makes it even funnier! There's as much comedy in this as in the 2017 version. I laughed even harder at Poirot's alarm when he learns Mrs. Hubbard is too near him.

I think I prefer this version of how they discover the murder. The 2017 film only showed the tops of everyone's heads. Here we get to see their reactions.

Wait, Cassetti himself didn't kill Daisy? His underling did? I don't remember that in the other film. Unfortunately I've no idea which is closer to the book.

This version emphasises the urgency of solving the crime before the rescuers dig the train out. That's conspicuously lacking from the 2017 film. Actually I was surprised to realise there was any urgency.

My German is even worse than I thought 😓 I barely understood anything Hildegarde read to the Princess.

I didn't expect Poirot to give his speech solving the crime while still on the train. It seems incredibly cramped and crowded when compared with how the 2017 film portrayed that scene. And it's a much longer speech, too. There were times when I wondered if Poirot would ever get around to revealing who the murderers were. Incidentally, the Princess's outfit in this scene is the strangest thing I've seen this year.

Are those feathers part of her hat, part of her dress, or just a very odd scarf? (Whatever they are, they made me giggle during the least humourous scene in the film.)

The flashback goes into much more detail about how the passengers carried out the murder. I'm not sure what I think about them saying who they're avenging when they stab Ratchett/Cassetti. I can see why they do that, but it strikes me as just repeating what the viewer already knows.

The end is the part I like the least. The passengers don't seem at all upset by what they did, while in the 2017 film they're all clearly shaken and unsure they did the right thing. Poirot, after a brief line about wrestling with his conscience, disappears and we don't see his guilt over letting them go.

Overall I like both adaptations. I prefer the 2017 version's visuals and final scene, but I enjoyed this version too.

Is it available online?: Not as far as I know.

Rating: 7/10.

Review: And Then There Were None (2015)

I have a confession to make, one that will amaze anyone who knows me in real life: I've never read any of Agatha Christie's books. Someone is probably thinking, "How can you be a bookworm and not read her books?" Good question. I want to read some of her books, but I've never got around to it yet. So I was one of the few people to watch this series with only a vague idea of the plot.

And Then There Were None is a 2015 miniseries adapted from the book of the same name by Agatha Christie. It's the first miniseries adaptation, but there have been at least four different film versions. I wrote this review while watching the series, so it's basically a list of my thoughts as I watched it.

There are several recognisable actors.

Anna Maxwell Martin (Esther in Bleak House 2005) as Mrs. Rogers

Charles Dance (Mr. Tulkinghorn in Bleak House 2005) as Wargrave

Burn Gorman (Mr. Guppy in Bleak House 2005) as Blore

Douglas Booth (Pip in Great Expectations 2011) as Marston

Sam Neill (Dr. Grant in Jurassic Park) as MacArthur

Miranda Richardson (Lady Van Tassel in Sleepy Hollow 1999) as Miss Brent

Aidan Turner (Kíli in The Hobbit) as Lombard

The opening credits are, not to put too fine a point on it, ugly. I hardly noticed any of the names at first. I was too busy trying to figure out what on earth those hideous green things were supposed to be. The first scenes aren't an improvement. The constant cuts between apparently-unrelated events left me wondering what the heck I was watching.

The series finds a creative way to introduce all the characters. We start with a woman being offered a job she didn't apply for -- something that would have warned most people there was something suspicious going on. Then we abruptly jump to letters being sent to other people, interspersed with those people going about their days. Creative, but confusing.

I like the music; it's suitably ominous. So is the incredibly bleak island the characters go to. What sort of island has massive cliffs in the middle of it?!

Is this an island or the Loch Ness Monster?

Imagine trying to write a tourist brochure for this island! An idyllic destination for anyone who likes to spend their holidays terrified of falling. If you don't have a fear of heights already, this place will give you one.

Ugh, the hideous green things reappear. Now I'm fairly sure they're supposed to be statues. Statues that look like the first attempts of a clumsy amateur statue-maker who made them while blindfolded 😒

What are those servants up to? At first I thought they were Mr. and Mrs. Owen in disguise. I'm trying very hard not to look up the book's plot, but the series takes ages to explain anything. At this rate I'll have to consult Wikipedia just to understand what's happening.

None of the characters are admirable, but Lombard stands out as a disgusting creep 😠

Love the scene where darkness literally covers the island! It's incredibly eerie, and the symbolism is obvious without being obnoxious.

The flashbacks to the murders are chilling 😨 I was wrong when I said Lombard's a disgusting creep. He's a complete monster 😱 I know enough of the plot to know most of the people on the island die. But I didn't expect the first death would happen so suddenly 😨

Episode two begins with two dead guests and two missing statues. (Thank goodness there are two less of those eyesores!) Sometimes this series feels more like horror than mystery. The way the camera lingers on the axe is honestly terrifying.

Some parts of the plot remind me a lot of Murder on the Orient Express. Most notably when everyone realises the killer is one of the guests.

As if the whole thing isn't creepy enough, the series just has to go the "dark and stormy night" route. Complete with lights going out, windows blowing open, and the moon going behind a cloud. And another murder, of course. Possibly the goriest yet 😱

Hiding a key and a gun in a bearskin rug? What a weird place to hide anything. Though I guess it worked; no one found the key. Yet.

It took me until the opening credits of episode three to realise that title card isn't just a mass of cracked statues; it's in the shape of the island and the house. Now I feel stupid for not noticing it earlier.

Someone clearly thought there wasn't enough horror in the series, so they showed some of the guests imagining their victims are in their rooms. I'm not sure if those are supposed to be hallucinations or if we're meant to believe they're actual ghosts. Either way, they're terrifying. Especially the hand in the sink 😨

Oh, for goodness' sake. A horror/mystery series is much better off without a romance subplot, but they just had to shoehorn one in here anyway. Not only does it interrupt the suspense, it's utterly out of place. And between the most despicable guest and the closest the series has to a main character, too. I don't know if it was in the book. Even if so, it should have been left out of the series.

What on earth? The bearskin rug came to life?! That had better be another hallucination 😒

I suspect the director wanted Lombard's death to be sad. The "romance" earlier only makes sense if you think it's meant to turn later events into a tear jerker. Unfortunately, Lombard was such a vile character that I didn't feel sorry for him at all. And the way Vera shrieked and hopped around just looked silly.

THE JUDGE WASN'T DEAD?????? And he was behind the whole thing? ...I should probably have guessed. Any character played by Charles Dance is practically guaranteed to be a villain.

The final scene is possibly the most disturbing in the whole series. Even if anyone finds all the bodies, they'll have no idea what really happened or who the killer was. Creepy.

Overall I quite enjoyed this series. I don't know how faithful it is to the book, but as a story in its own right it's fairly good. My main problem with it is how utterly despicable all the characters are. I know that's the point of the series, but I prefer stories with at least one relatively decent character.

Is it available online?: I doubt it.

Rating: 6/10.

Review: The Signal-Man

Happy Halloween in advance! Today I'll review one of Charles Dickens' lesser-known short stories, which is very suitable for this time of year.

The Signal-Man is a short story by Charles Dickens, first published in 1866. It's been adapted into at least one film and several radio dramas. Andrew Lloyd Webber made two attempts to make it into a musical/opera. Neither was successful (possibly a good thing).

The story's about a signal-man who sees a ghostly figure before disasters on the railway. He tells the narrator about the times he sees it, and the tragedies that followed. It's a lot more frightening than that description makes it sound. The end is especially chilling 😨

Dickens is so well-known for his loooong novels that it's hard to believe he wrote short stories. Not only that, but a story with only one plot, no subplots, and amazingly few characters. This story is so unlike his usual works that it hardly seems like Dickens at all. Yet considering its genre, the shortness and lack of subplots work in its favour. From start to finish it's incredibly eerie. The ending is easy to see coming, but no less terrifying because of it.

If you want a ghost story to read on Halloween, try this one! It might not be one of Dickens' more famous stories, but it's certainly one of his eeriest.

Is it available online?: Yes, on Gutenberg in a collection of other Dickens ghost stories.

Rating: 9/10.

Review: The Clockmaker's Daughter (novel)

I read this novel during lunch breaks at work for about five weeks. This week I finally finished it, so now I can review it.

The Clockmaker's Daughter is a 2018 novel by Kate Morton, an author I'd never heard of before this book. So far it hasn't been adapted. (There's a musical of the same name, but that has nothing to do with the book.)

It has several different narrators, all connected to the same house, each narrating from a different point in history: "Birdie", the title character, a ghost haunting Birchwood Manor; Elodie, a modern girl trying to solve a mystery about the manor; Ada, a schoolgirl in the late 1800s who almost drowns at the manor; Juliet, Elodie's great-grandmother, who stays at the manor with her children during World War II; and Lucy, who knew Birdie when she was alive. There are also a Dickensian amount of other characters, many of whom are connected to each other or some of the narrators without ever meeting them.

At first I started to read this book for three reasons: it was there, the cover was pretty, and I was bored. The first chapter or so didn't really interest me. I was considering giving it up when I got to the first part narrated by Birdie, the only first-person narrator in the book. At once I was hooked. The writing was excellent and so beautiful, the character was mysterious and had such a unique outlook on the world, and I wanted to learn more about her. So I read on.

Sometimes it was hard going. The novel suffers from one major flaw: too many narrators, and no clear distinction between their point of view and someone else's. Every time I started a new section I was left wondering, who's talking now? until I got used to their POV. Worse, each narrator comes with a different cast of characters surrounding them. It's something like Charles Dickens did in Bleak House: many characters, multiple narrators, and most of them only appear in one character's part of the story. Unlike in Bleak House, the characters aren't immediately distinctive and many of them blend together. I can't remember all their names.

The story's weakest part is undoubtedly its ending. There are simply too many loose threads left hanging. What was all that about Elodie's mother and the violinist? What about Elodie's engagement and Jack's family? What happened to the jewel? And most importantly, why did Lucy leave Birdie trapped in the hide-away? She knew she was there, she knew she had no way of getting out, but she left her to starve or suffocate there and only came back twenty years later! What the hell?

Whatever else can be said of the novel, at least the prose itself is good, and often beautifully poetic. My favourite scene in the book is the part where Tip says he wasn't afraid in the darkness because he could see all the tiny specks of light. The story of the Eldritch Children sounds like a real fairy tale, and the light in the window and Edward's late-night pursuit by something (that may or may not be a figment of his imagination) are all the more eerie because they aren't explained. And in spite of the unresolved subplots, the epilogue is both bittersweet and haunting.

Overall this novel has its flaws. I skipped some parts of it, and kept going back to others. But it also has its good moments.

Is it available online?: I don't think so.

Rating: 5/10.

Review: Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

I've seen plenty of whodunnits. But this is the first time I've watched a film where the question is instead "who didn't do it?"

Can't say I'm a fan of this title card. It's awfully plain for a film that's full of beautiful cinematography.

Murder on the Orient Express is based on one of Agatha Christie's better-known novels. I've never read it or any of her other novels (shocking, I know), so I was one of the few people who didn't know the twist ending before I watched the film.

There's a long list of familiar faces (and actors whose names I recognised but whose other films I've never seen):
Kenneth Branagh (Lockhart in Harry Potter) as Poirot
Judi Dench (Miss Matty in Cranford) as Princess Dragomiroff
Daisy Ridley (Rey in Star Wars) as Mary
Hadley Fraser (Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera 25th Anniversary) as an unnamed soldier
Leslie Odom Jr. (Burr in Hamilton) as Dr. Arbuthnot
Johnny Depp (Jack in Pirates of the Caribbean) as Ratchett/Cassetti
Penélope Cruz (Angelica in Pirates of the Caribbean) as Pilar
Derek Jacobi (Nell's grandfather in The Old Curiosity Shop 2007) as Masterman

The story starts with Poirot solving a crime in Israel. This case has nothing to do with the main plot, but it establishes Poirot's skill as a detective and is pretty interesting to watch. I laughed when the criminal tries to escape... only to run into Poirot's walking stick 😄

Poirot

Poirot goes to Istanbul, where he gets on the Orient Express... and meets his fellow passengers, many of whom are a bit odd. (To say the least!) We get some truly beautiful scenery as the train travels towards its destination.

Some of the amazing scenery in this film.

There are also some amusing interactions between the passengers. I laughed at the "I brushed Dalia this morning." "No, you tortured my darling doggy." conversation. And I loved the scene of Poirot reading A Tale of Two Cities -- though I have to wonder what he was laughing at. Of all Dickens' books, that one's second only to Great Expectations for "fewest comical scenes". There's certainly very little that would make anyone laugh out loud in it.

The train is caught in an avalanche and stuck in place until someone comes to dig it out. That's when the inevitable happens: someone is murdered. Poirot and his friend Bouc are the only people who aren't suspects. So they start questioning the other passengers.

Why is the discovery of the murder filmed from the ceiling? It's impossible to see anyone's reactions when the camera is focused on the tops of their heads. Most of the movie is beautifully filmed, so surely they could have found a way to shoot that scene while letting the audience see the characters' faces.

Speaking of the way scenes are filmed, I'm not a fan of those bits in the dining room where the characters are seen through glass. It's blurry and disorientating. But I suppose it fits the mood of the scene.

Ratchett, the victim, was a thoroughly unpleasant man who had received threatening letters. The window to his carriage was found open. Even when I watched this for the first time and didn't know the ending, I knew the open window was a red herring. No way would a murder mystery have such a neat, easy-to-solve crime.

Poirot and Bouc examining the body. Another scene inexplicably filmed from above.

Would someone please explain what that kimono has to do with the plot? I can understand the conductor's uniform, but the kimono is just... odd.

It's revealed Ratchett was really a kidnapper and murderer named Cassetti. Poirot finds a note that shows Ratchett/Cassetti was killed by someone avenging the Armstrongs, the family Ratchett (directly and indirectly) killed.

Not only is this film a murder mystery, it's an exercise in foreign languages. Poirot speaks French several times through the film, and I was embarrassed to discover just how bad my grasp on spoken French is. It took me a long time to realise he was saying "allons-y" in the final scene 😓 On the bright side, I was astonished when I understood half of what Poirot and Schmidt said in German, without the help of subtitles. Progress!

Some of the passengers apparently set out to make themselves as suspicious as possible. What on earth was MacQueen thinking when he decided to burn evidence? All right, so he probably panicked and didn't think, but that's exactly the behaviour that will make a detective investigate even more.

I'm very impressed with everyone's acting. I don't think there's a single weak performance among the entire cast. Even character who have very few scenes or lines are completely convincing.

Poirot accuses Miss Debenham of being the murderer. Dr. Arbuthnot tries to kill him and claims he was the murderer. In the process he answers Poirot's remaining questions and lets him solve the case quicker. I spent this entire scene going "it was her-- no, him-- no, someone else-- no, both of them..." But I never expected the actual solution.

All the suspects

I love Poirot's little speech just before he solves the crime. It's suitably awesome for such a dramatic moment.

"You tell your lies and you think no one will know. But there are two people who will know. Yes, two people. Your God, and Hercule Poirot."

Almost everyone already knows who the murderers were, but still: SPOILERS!

At first I couldn't believe that literally everyone in the carriage had murdered Cassetti. But as the denouement continued, an awful lot of things began to make sense. I still don't know what was up with Miss Debenham wearing that kimono, though. It seemed to have nothing to do with the case. Were they trying to send Poirot on a wild goose chase?

In most films, twelve people who stabbed a man to death would not be the sympathetic characters. But it's impossible not to pity them. I burst into tears at the flashback to Pilar being unable to stop Ratchett kidnapping Daisy. And the tears just got worse from then on. Especially when we learn who Mrs. Hubbard really is. And when she picks up the gun... 😭

Just to make things even sadder, we get Poirot's "letter" to Colonel Armstrong. 😭😭 Even the final scene of the train slowly moving away is pretty depressing 😢 I had to laugh, though, at Poirot getting off the train only to be asked to solve another murder. He just can't get a proper holiday!

This film has very quickly become one of my favourites. I don't know how close it sticks to the novel, but it's a good film on its own. I'm impatiently waiting for the sequel. Hopefully it won't fall victim to the flaws that sequels often suffer from.

Is it available online?: I don't think so.

Rating: 9/10.