THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO
© 2002 Touchstone Pictures

Related Links

0

THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO

It's hard to go wrong with an Alexandre Dumas tale. The writer was such a great storyteller that even the most obvious adaptation prompts audiences to wonder what will happen next. However, Dumas' THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO gets a pretty uninspired treatment in its new film incarnation the production design and scenery are breathtaking, the cast includes a number of big guns, but the movie feels like an early-'80s telefilm. Still, the narrative manages to prove resilient.

In 1814, young French seaman Edmond Dantes (Jim Caviezel) encounters the exiled Napoleon Bonaparte and agrees to convey a letter for the prisoner back to Paris. Dantes (apparently the most naïve man in France) is astonished to learn that, contrary to Bonaparte's assurances, the missive is political rather than personal in nature. Worse, Dantes finds himself denounced for treason by his supposed best friend, the insanely envious Count of Montero (Guy Pearce), who can not bear the fact that his commoner pal is getting more out of life than he, a nobleman, is. Dantes is confined to the horrible island prison of Chateau d'If, where he languishes for years until a fellow prisoner (Richard Harris) enlists him in an escape plan that gives Dantes access to a fortune in hidden treasure. Returning to the world a rich man, Dantes takes up a new identity (see title) and begins to plot revenge against those who wronged him.

Jim Caviezel and Dagmara Dominczyk in THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO

© 2002 Touchstone Pictures

As a text, THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO has withstood the test of time and even with all its problems, the film is still enjoyable to watch. The movie feels longer than it actually is, but this may be less a function of director Kevin Reynolds' pacing than of Jay Wolpert's plot-heavy screenplay a veritable TARDIS of events that seems to pack in more incident than the not-much-over-two-hour running time should allow. Reynolds also does a bang-up job of getting the most out of sumptuous environments, both manmade and natural, in order to provide a sense of epic scale.

Where Reynolds can be faulted is in letting the tone slide from awkward semi-comedy in an early scene where Dantes and Montero face English gunmen, it's not clear if we're supposed to be apprehensive or amused to pseudo-Masterpiece Theatre sobriety to a sudden influx of contemporary humor. Luis Guzman is genuinely funny as Dantes' loyal sidekick, but the character's attitude and delivery are totally modern. The rest of the cast appear to have been encouraged to play their roles as unambiguously as possible, so while some of the performances are entertaining (Pearce and James Frain especially), not a one is very layered or surprising.

For all of the big-screen scale involved in THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, its earnest dedication to formula makes it resemble an old movie-of-the-week costume actioner. It provides a kind of absent-minded, repetitive fun for genre fans, but it doesn't do anything very exciting with the form beyond using it to retell a great yarn.