The Count of Monte Cristo

Unfaithful to the original story, yet acceptable

The Story:

The Count of Monte Cristo is a movie adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ book by the same title. Dashing young sailor Edmond Dantes (Jim Caviezel) is a guileless and honest man, whose peaceful life and plans to marry the beautiful Mercedes (Dagmara Dominczyk) are abruptly shattered when his best friend Fernand Mondego (Guy Pearce), who wants Mercedes for himself, deceives him.

Set up to be unlawfully sentenced to the infamous island prison of Chateau D’If, Edmond is trapped in a nightmare that lasts for thirteen years. Over time everything he ever believed about right and wrong is abandoned and replaced by all-consuming thoughts of vengeance against those who betrayed him. With the help of an equally innocent fellow inmate, Dantes plots and succeeds in his mission to escape from prison, whereupon he transforms himself into the mysterious and wealthy Count of Monte Cristo. With cunning ruthlessness, he cleverly insinuates himself into the French nobility and systematically destroys the men who manipulated and enslaved him.

Release Date: January 25, 2002
Distributor: Touchstone Pictures
Directed By: Kevin Reynolds (Fandango, Robin Hood – Prince of Thieves, Waterworld, Tristan & Isolde)
Starring: James Caviezel, Guy Pearce, Dagmara Dominczyk, Richard Harris, Luis Guzman
Budget: $35,000,000
Gross Revenue: $54,228,104 (USA) $75,395,048 (worldwide)

Review:

When you see a film which is an adaptation from a book, how do you prefer the plot? Faithful to the novel’s original story, or with some modifications to adjust with market’s taste? Actually, a movie can be good either way, and satisfactory for both the book fans and movie fans. For me, The Count of Monte Cristo is an exception. For those who don’t familiar with Alexandre Dumas’ writing probably love this movie, but for the ones who already read the book, this film gives a fair disappointment.

For you who haven’t read the book, I’ve got not much to say. The plot is decent, the acting is convincing, the visualization is quite accurate with the after-Napoleon’s era. It also gives a little action touch that quite enjoyable. Overall, The Count of Monte Cristo isn’t perfect. but very watchable.

Now, for you who already read the book, the most notable thing is how the movie spends too much time in Edmond Dantes previous life before becomes Count of Monte Cristo. In the book, Dantes’ story until he escapes from the prison only takes about 13 (of 73) chapters, while the movie spends almost half of its running time. This makes the film has less time to tell Dantes’ plan for avenge.

As we knew from the book, Dantes’ revenge plan is the most interesting part of the whole story. How he destroys the life of his enemies; Danglars, Fernand, and Villefort. He doesn’t go straight to the targets, but cripples their wealth and family slowly, and finish them when they at the peak of their suffering. In the movie, the detail only applies for Fernand Mondego, and kinda forget about the other two villains.

Apart from the differences, if you can’t forget about the book while watching this movie, you can consider it as a quite exciting brand new story, with slightly better ending than the novel.

My Rating: B-

IMDb user rating: 7.6/10

Rotten Tomatoes meter: 74%

Metacritic: 61/100

Yahoo! critics: C+

Yahoo! users: B

Your Ratings: (2 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)
 Loading ...

Note that ratings and gross revenue are based from when this review was written, so the values might already changed by now.