Thoughts on the Orient Express
Rating of the book: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating of the 2017 film: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
In this blog, I'm going to compare and contrast the book "Murder on the Orient Express" (written by Agatha Christie) with the movie based off of the novel (the 2017 version). There is also another film that dates back to 1974, and I personally liked that one best mainly because I found it more accurate, however it wouldn't make for much of a
fun blog because it's almost exactly like the book!
In both versions, famous detective Hercule Poirot (who is the main character), is travelling on the world-renowned Orient Express as a passenger with a dozen others. He goes to sleep thinking that it would be a normal train ride, and finds out how wrong he was. When he awakens, the train is stuck in a snowdrift, and one of the passengers, Mr. Ratchett, is found dead in his compartment having being stabbed 12 times. Having been told the news, Poirot takes it upon himself to solve the interesting murder on the Orient Express that has taken place...
From here, there are some significant differences between the two forms of the story. For example, in the movie, Ms. Hubbard gets stabbed with the murder weapon, but in the book, she finds it in her sponge bag. Another contrast is Poirot get attacked and shot by Colonel Arbuthnot near the end of the film, but not in the novel. Also in the movie, the detective interrogates Mary Debenham outside in the snow, but in the book she doesn't get the special treatment.
I would give the book "Murder on the Orient Express" 5 out of 5 stars because I like Agatha Christie's style of writing and how much of a page-turner it is. This book was actually my first real murder mystery and I found I really admired how much work the author must have put in to it, not only come up with a murder, but to also create clues to reasonably solve it. I did think this story in particular pieced the clues perfectly together to the point where I could envision it clearly in my mind even when there was a lot of moving parts. In fact, I liked this book so much that I think I might read another Hercule Poirot in the future to see where this character goes.
As for the 2017 movie starring many famous actors such as Jonny Depp, Kenneth Branagh and Daisy Ridley, I would give it 4 stars instead of 5. In this version, I like how they raised an interesting question of "What is justice?" that was present in the book but not as focused on. The movie was also very entertaining and I enjoyed watching it. However, I was disappointed because even though it was a good movie to watch, since it strayed so much from the novel, it felt like the book and the movie were two separate stories, not at one with each other. I think that if they had taken the time to put more detail in the film and made it not so fast paced, I would have enjoyed watching it a lot more.
Aside from these differences, both versions were mysterious and suspenseful and that's what I enjoyed the most in this novel and movie. Both are defiantly worth checking out and I was excited to see when researching that a new movie about another Hercule Poirot book, "Death on the Nile" will be coming in 2022 so, for me, that's something to look forward to.
Please write in the comments if you've read or watched "The Murder on the Orient Express". If you've seen both versions, please comment on which one you like better so I and others can hear your thoughts.
