The ABC Murders (Amazon Prime) (1 Viewer)

[Matt Hough]

I've been watching the three episodes in this miniseries. While it's so far been reasonably faithful to Dame Agatha's original plot, various changes have been made with characters, settings, and business that just haven't set well with me. The book is one of her real masterpieces, but I think she'd roll over in her grave to know that her heirs are having her books "spiced" up with darkness and kinkiness wherever they can. Ordeal by Innocence changed the ending of Mrs. Christie's book (and thus the identity and motivation of the murderer), but I'll see when I watch the last episode if they've done that here, too (on the evidence of the first two installments, it doesn't appear like they're going to change it; it's such a shock trick that Christie pulls that nothing they could think of now would top it).

While he's a fine actor, John Malkovich is not my idea of Hercule Poirot, and he doesn't seem urgent enough in the role. Also, Poirot was vain to the end, so he would NEVER have stopped dyeing his hair and mustache.

 

[Johnny Angell]

I haven’t read AC and I’ve watched the first 2 episodes and will watch the 3rd. I agree, Malkovich is not my idea of Poirot. In the books did Poirot fall on hard times do “Murder” dinners? If this production added that, it’s atrocious.

 

[Matt Hough]

I haven’t read AC and I’ve watched the first 2 episodes and will watch the 3rd. I agree, Malkovich is not my idea of Poirot. In the books did Poirot fall on hard times do “Murder” dinners? If this production added that, it’s atrocious.

No, he never fell on hard times, and certainly not in the period of the 1930s. I finished the series earlier tonight, and while the solution stays true to the book, the surprise is kind of spoiled early in the last episode with a very obvious clue that was NOT in the book either. They also added another very gruesome murder not in the book.

The thing that has bothered me most about these most recent Christie remakes is how dark and gruesomely violent they're being filmed. Of course, there are plenty of murders in Mrs. Christie's works, but she doesn't revel in the violence, and these made-for-TV events seem to relish how bloody and twisted they can make the crimes.