Murder on the Orient Express

Only one culprit in the murder of a movie made attractive by first-class cast, cleverly contained coverage and a talented hair & mustache department; the script. Less whodunit and more whocares, once the plot is set in locomotion, it’s promptly derailed by an avalanche of artificial action and useless clues.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Pirates sells smoothly on after dumping Bloom baggage. Depp continues to justify the franchise but Barbosa gets a bigger role in this scaled down sequel. Brilliantly censored mermaids, Penelope’s other cruise, and an appropriately ludicrous fountain plot round out this small seas adventure. But why are the rum references gone?

Open Your Eyes

Brilliant sci-fi mystery maintains impressive amount of suspense while asking serious philosophical questions. Seemingly senseless occurrences tie perfectly together at brilliantly plotted climax. Noriega delivers phenomenal performance despite inhibiting, unimpressive makeup. Star-making role for Cruz who went on to act in the vanilla bastard remake, Open Your Eyes Wide Shut.

Nine

Segues poorly between compelling acting and flashy music videos. Fergie delivers fantastic performance prompting suspicions that everyone else acted down to make her look better. If Rob Marshall’s goal was to create a barely passable schizophrenic remake to mirror his character he succeeded admirably. Disproves math: 8 1/2 > 9.