Malkovich as Poirot in The ABC Murders (Prime)

Calla Lily · Feb 1, 2019

Opinionated opinion below:

What in the everlasting fuck was this POS?!

Every so often a bizarre version of a Shakespeare play will appear and someone will comment that Will is turning over in his grave. Christie must be somersaulting in hers, because "loosely based on" should've been in bold, screaming neon letters over the title.

It's an abomination.

And I'm not the world's biggest Christie fan either. This was appalling. The screenwriter changed Poirot's backstory.
^I'm not making that up.

The only positive note was seeing Rupert Grint prove he can be more than Ron Weasley.

AVOID. Trust me. I took the hit for y'all.

frimble3 · Feb 1, 2019

I'm a big Poirot fan. Can you tell me, either whited-out or in an e-mail, what they've changed about his backstory? They haven't made him French, have they?

Calla Lily · Feb 2, 2019

Flashback to when he came to England as a refugee and lied about being a police officer, which made everything he ever said to Japp a lie, which made practically every character in the movie humiliate hom repeatedly. And which made Japp die of 'a broken heart' when he found out.

Thw screenwriter made the entire Poirot canon a lie. I'm still trying to wrap my head around this abomination.

I really hated it. Can you tell?

frimble3 · Feb 2, 2019

I quite understand why you feel that way! And what was the point of it? His original backstory made perfect sense.
If this version makes it over to regular TV, I shall have to choose between ignoring it entirely, or taking a cautious look to see how awful it is. At least if Poirot is played by
Malkovich, it'll be easy to spot/avoid.

onesecondglance · Feb 3, 2019

Meh. I have no attachment to the previous backstory. Taking this as a "reboot" or alternate history, I thought it was done rather well. Malkovich does a very good job with the character.

benbenberi · Feb 4, 2019

I really don't understand why people seem to feel the need to take the names of Christie's novels and characters and then replace her perfectly well-constructed (and well-loved) stories with their own dreadful new ones. They're never an improvement. The results are at best mediocre, and usually much worse than that. Feh!

I was already on the fence about checking this one out. If it was being presented as an original story with original characters, it might have been worth it. But like this? Nope. That's a few hours I'll have for other things.

Elle. · Feb 4, 2019

benbenberi said:
I really don't understand why people seem to feel the need to take the names of Christie's novels and characters and then replace her perfectly well-constructed (and well-loved) stories with their own dreadful new ones. They're never an improvement. The results are at best mediocre, and usually much worse than that. Feh!

I was already on the fence about checking this one out. If it was being presented as an original story with original characters, it might have been worth it. But like this? Nope. That's a few hours I'll have for other things.

The ABC Murders had the green-light from the Agatha Christie foundation. I was at a talk with the main representation from the foundation and she said that they were very happy with the reboot and they were looking at ways of re-actualising stories from Agatha Christie. They also done a new series about Miss Marple in South Korea.

I personally really like what they've done with The ABC Murders & And Then There Were None.

Malkovich as Poirot in The ABC Murders (Prime)

Calla Lily

On hiatus

frimble3

Heckuva good sport

Calla Lily

On hiatus

frimble3

Heckuva good sport

onesecondglance

pretending to be awake

benbenberi

practical experience, FTW

Elle.