Movie Reviews

Movie Review: “The Count Of Monte-Cristo” Is Just As Good Today As It Was Back Then

After escaping from an island prison where he spent 14 years for being wrongly accused of state treason, Edmond Dantès returns as the Count of Monte Cristo to exact revenge on the men who betrayed him.

Alexandre Dumas penned the infamous novel as a serial story. Citizens all over France (and later the world) gathered to gossip about each new chapter’s entry and how the plot unfolded like a 19th-century water-cooler narrative event. Long before the Golden Age of television and the historical epics of 1960s Hollywood, “The Count” is the progenitor of plenty of adventurous literature, and this modern adaptation holds up to that high water mark. Condensing the more than thousand-page novel might prove daunting, but this film adaptation (the twenty-ninth ranging as far back as the earliest days of cinema) retains the grand sense of adventure by traipsing across scenic European locales and returning to lush Parisian estates. Its lush imagery plays host to deep character work that fuels the adventurous plotlines in a magical adventure film everyone should see.

Pierre Niney plays the titular Count, Edmond Dantes, to his closest friends throughout the runtime. His reined-in passionate performance anchors the story closer to real life, where moments might feel too hyperbolic. To see his character grow and change so immensely throughout the movie’s three-hour runtime speaks to his unwavering commitment, and the fact that he not only plays the mysterious Count but also various caricatures in disguise with multiple accents and effects only demonstrates his range as an actor. Alongside him is Julien de Saint-Jean as Andrea, the Count’s ward, speaks, burning with a white-hot fire to see revenge. Anamaria Vartolomei, as Haydee, the third leg of this revenge table, is rounding out the trio. All three flesh out their characters with such white-hot purpose they play off each other beautifully. What starts so simple, ethics-wise, expands into greyer and greyer territory as revenge comes full circle. All three actors carry out the mission bravely.

“The Count of Monte-Cristo” is a wild story, full of adventurous twists and turns in its original format. It’s been adapted tens of times, if not hundreds, at this point, and its easy to get lost in all the scenery the story offers. Are Mediterranean islands hoarding secret Knights’ Templar treasure? French-Italian prison islands? Grand Parisian estates? Marseillaise docks? All are brought viscerally to life in this movie but never give way to the central drama. The close-ups focus more on the characters than on the locations. This central focus helps the movie soar in so many ways.

The trick is not to overdo it. The American conception of an adventure film requires elaborate sequences of chase, daring-do, or some fatal fight spread across a varied estate. This drama pairs such events down in favor of the character drama. While it might seem like a missed opportunity, it elevates this adventure film to a different degree. The deft direction by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière always keeps the plot churning, always centering on our eponymous Count.

There’s a lot of plot to condense down into this story. In the first thirty minutes alone, Edmond saves a life, gets betrayed by his rival, lives in prison for fourteen years, escapes, masters several languages and philosophy, discovers treasure, AND THEN arrives in Paris as the mysterious Count. The story could wind itself across dozens of hours if not trimmed carefully, and this adaptation works so well. Its incredible acting and gorgeous sets bolster it, but cutting the plot down to light three hours is undoubtedly the best one can make of the world’s most famous adventure story.

“The Count of Monte-Cristo” works so well on so many levels. The acting tows the line between brooding and playful, allowing us to lean into the drama without feeling cheapened. The characters root the action of the film. The plot churns at an impressive pace but never confuses or loses sight of its goals. The incredible locations and costumes have me buying a plane flight to Paris and Marseille as we speak they’re rendered so gorgeously. As if that’s not enough, the movie sticks the landing with a finale worth every second of its buildup. If this movie crosses deeper into American cinemas, I’ll recommend it to everyone I see. Family-friendly, deeply adventurous, and vaguely exotic to Americans, it’s a knockout film with plenty for audiences to dig into.

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