Title: The Count of Monte Christo
Describe This Movie In One Simpsons Quote:
BART: Great story, Grandpa. Could’ve used a vampire, though.
Brief Plot Synopsis: Revenge is a dish best served en croûte, or something.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 3.5 Heywoods out of 5.
Tagline: N/A
Better Tagline: “Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme, Frenchmen get the yeet.”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: The year is 1815. Napoleon is in exile and a sailor named Edmond Dantès (Pierre Niney) just wants to return home and marry his love, Mercédès Herrera (Anaïs Demoustier). Events on his final voyage lead to his promotion to captain, which displeases the deposed captain, Danglars (Patrick Mille), who frames Edmond as a Bonapartist and leads to his imprisonment in the notorious Château d’If prison, where he spends the next 14 years. While there, he befriends Abbé Faria (Pierfrancesco Favino), who tells him of a fortune stashed on the island of Monte Cristo. Edmond eventually escapes, recovers the fortune, and returns to Marseille as the Count of Monte Cristo. And if you think he’s planning elaborate revenge for his tormentors, you must have paid attention in Lit class.
“Critical” Analysis: I think this review has the most accent remarks of anything I’ve ever written.
Watching this latest incarnation of The Count of Monte Cristo, based on Alexandre Dumas’ 1844 classic, it really hammers home how much of art is indeed theft. Never mind the dozens of film and TV adaptations, produced by studios in the U.S., France, India, Hong Kong, Mexico, the USSR, Turkey, and Venezuela. Just look at stuff like Ben Hur, The Fugitive, The Princess Bride, Braveheart (Uncle Argyle is just Abbé Faria with a Scottish accent), The Shawshank Redemption (duh), V for Vendetta, Kill Bill, The Revenant. All stories about wronged individuals seeking justice/revenge.
“Justice” is how Edmond Dantès describes it. His former fiancée Mercédès sees it differently, especially when the life of her son is on the line. Edmond isn’t receptive of this analysis, especially considering Mercédès ended up marrying his former buddy Fernand de Morcerf (Bastien Bouillon), who not coincidentally played a key role in getting Edmond sent to prison.
But let’s not get to far into the weeds. Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière’s version excises certain characters and subplots from Dumas’ novel and still runs three hours. They also introduce some new wrinkles: the Knights Templar angle to the Monte Cristo fortune is a nice add, for example. And the disguise Edmond wears as he moves his chess pieces into place is that much more necessary when you realize Niney doesn’t look much like a guy who spent 14 years in prison.
Delaporte and de La Patellière do follow the main beats. Danglars (heh) is now a Baron, and Fernand is a general in the Army. Edmond’s prosecutor, though Gérard de Villefort (Laurent Lafitte) is now the father of the illegitimate (and believed dead) son Andrea. It doesn’t matter, because our Count will deal with them all in turn.
TCoMC is suspenseful, epic in scope, and its production design and costumes are très magnifique. This is the most expensive French production of 2024, and one of its most of all time. What CG effects there are don’t intrude, and Nicolas Bolduc’s cinematography, when it avoids digital manipulation, is a winner.
But again, For a hard road prisoner, Pierre Niney looks pretty, well, pretty. Niney is only 35, while the Count is pushing 40. Still, it’s a nice turnaround from a sexagenarian Tom Cruise playing an action hero. He’s also quite the master of disguise (did Edmond Dantès invent the fat suit for his “Lord Halifax” disguise) and Jérôme Rebotier’s score is often heavy-handed and too on the nose.
And the Count’s revenge plays out with depressing ease. The prosecutor is easily disgraced, Baron Danglars (heh) is easily ruined, but not without collateral damage. Because single-minded vengeance is one thing, but Delaporte and de La Patellière effectively convey the way its impacts always fan out to others.
Niney’s Count is a right bastard, which is understandable. And there are some good lines, both from the original text (“All human wisdom is contained in these two words: Wait and Hope”) and from Delaporte
and de La Patellière’s script (“To hate an Englishman is no sin”). And even if some of the shot choices are a bit overwrought, The Count of Monte Cristo is a worthy epic. And hey, a climactic sword fight! You don’t see many of those these days.
The Count of Monte Cristo is in theaters today.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
