For an entire century’s worth of debuts, reprints and adaptations, the works of Agatha Christie have given fans immeasurable amounts of joy and thrills. This is even more applicable to the Belgian sleuth she used to kick off her career as a preeminent purveyor of the murder mystery: Monsieur Hercule Poirot. Played over the years by legendary actors like Peter Ustinov, David Suchet and even John Malkovich, both throughout the media of film and TV, Kenneth Branagh’s incarnation of the Poirot is the latest torchbearer to bring stories like this year’s Death on the Nile to audiences worldwide. But these newer films, starting with 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express, have differed from traditional Christie adaptations in several key ways. One of which is, quite simply, they’re much bigger affairs on the big screen.
