So here’s a mystery: why has Kenneth Branagh, in fashioning this handsome adaptation of Agatha Christie’s beloved Hercule Poirot whodunnit, opted to make so many changes to the source material?
The much-delayed sequel to 2017s enjoyably naff (and hugely profitable) Murder on the Orient Express seems less interested in foul play than deconstructing Poirot’s famously persnickety persona. In Michael Green’s screenplay our moustached hero is scarred, in every sense, by his experiences in WWI. He falls for a world-weary blues singer, wields a revolver and continually cries over spilt blood. Hercule get your gun? Poirot in pain? Whatever way you spin it, this is the Belgian detective as we’ve never seen him before. And, frankly, as I have no wish to see him again.
