Hercule Poirot’s on the case, again; so are daddies Ferrell, Wahlberg
‘Murder on the Orient Express’
In its heyday, the movie studio MGM used to boast of having “more stars than there are in heaven.”
The 2017 edition of “Murder
on the Orient Express” would give it a run for its money.
Then again, that’s how this “Express” roles. The 1974 movie based on Agatha Christie’s classic mystery starred, among many others, Sean Connery, Lauren Bacall, Vanessa Redgrave, Anthony Perkins and Ingrid Bergman, who won her second Oscar for her performance. Albert Finney played the master Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.
In this year’s model, Kenneth Branagh, who also directs, is Poirot, with a train full of A-list suspects and targets, including Johnny Depp, Daisy Ridley, Leslie Odom Jr., Josh Gad, Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench, Michelle Pfeiffer, Derek Jacobi, Lucy Boynton, Olivia Colman and Appleton native Willem Dafoe.
And that doesn’t include Poirot/Branagh’s supersized mustache.
Short version: Someone’s murdered on the famous train, and everyone — all seemingly strangers — is a suspect.
As with most Agatha Christie, the devil’s in the details. So far, Branagh’s take is getting OK reviews. Hollywood Reporter critic Todd McCarthy liked it, calling “maybe not as starry but … snappier” than the 1974 version.
“Murder on the Orient Express” is rated PG-13 for violence and thematic elements. It runs for 109 minutes.
‘Wonderstruck’
Ben and Rose have a lot in common: Both kids lost their hearing (one recently), feel like something else is missing in their lives, long for a connection — and are drawn to the same museum, 50 years apart.
Based on Brian Selznick’s novel, weaves their stories together, Rose’s, set in 1927, in black and white, and Ben’s, in 1977, in color.
Todd Haynes, a master of period dramas from “Far From Heaven” to “Velvet Goldmine” to 2015’s “Carol,” is getting solid reviews for “Wonderstruck,” which co-stars Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams and, as Ben, Oakes Fegley. Millicent Simmonds, a young deaf actress making her big-screen debut as Rose, is getting raves.
“Simmonds is a cherubic-faced gem, and she brilliantly captures the kid awe of witnessing a big-city landscape,” USA TODAY critic Brian
Truitt wrote in his 21⁄2-star review.
“Wonderstruck” is rated PG for thematic elements and smoking. It runs for 117 minutes.
‘Daddy’s Home 2’
In “Daddy’s Home,” touchyfeely stepdad Will Ferrell found himself competing for his children’s affections with their birth father, a buff, charismatic but irresponsible guy played by Mark Wahlberg. By the movie’s end, the two dads had come to an understanding — sort of.
Why “Daddy’s Home 2”?
Because No. 1, released in 2015, took in more than $150 million, that’s why.
This time, the dads’ detente between the two dads is shattered when their own fathers — Wahlberg’s, played by an even more macho Mel Gibson, and Ferrell’s, by an even huggier John Lithgow — both come to visit for the holidays.
“Daddy’s Home 2” is rated PG-13 for suggestive material and language. It runs for 98 minutes.
‘Jane’
In our understanding of chimpanzees, there’s before Jane and after Jane.
Jane is, of course, Jane Goodall, the amazing anthropologist whose studies of chimpanzees in the wild helped define not just what we knew about them, but what we knew about each other.
“Jane,” a new documentary by Brett Morgen showing for one week at the Times Cinema, tells her story by combining contemporary, and candid, interviews with more than 100 hours of never-before-seen footage of Goodall in the field. Among the revelations she discovered: that chimps not only use tools, but make their own, a revelation at the time.
The result is one of the bestreviewed movies of 2017, and the winner of the best feature award at this year’s Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards.
“Thanks to Goodall — then and now — ‘Jane’ is a compelling movie, one that shows us not just more of the world, but also our place in it,” Arizona Republic critic Bill Goodykoontz wrote in his 4-star (out of 5) review.
“Jane” is rated PG-13 for thematic elements and smoking. It runs for 90 minutes.