A Review of The Count of Monte Cristo: A Wet Blanket of A Movie (The Count Of Monte Cristo (DVD))

Name: freelancer1

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Product:	The Count Of Monte Cristo (DVD)
Date:	06/08/02 (243 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A few well-played parts, visually impressive.

Disadvantages: Script and plot are weak, characters too stereotypical.

I saw The Count of Monte Cristo on the first day it came out in the UK, but I wasn't overly impressed. Here's why...


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The Man in the Iron Mask, Anybody?
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Dashing young men dash across the screen quite dashingly in this distinctly average tale of trust, bravery and - well - dashing, really.
Admittedly there are some impressive scenes and the landscape is breathtaking, but the story-line leaves a little to be desired...


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The Plot of The Count of Monte Cristo
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We're in France after the fall of Napoleon. The dashing (I warned you!) Edmond Dantes (played by Jim Caviezel) is a clerk's son who has enjoyed some success in life. His fiancee, Mercedes (Dagmara Dominczyk), is stunningly beautiful and he has a great friend in the also dashing Fernand Mondego (Guy Pearce).

But the whole situation is quickly turned around as Edmond becomes the captain of his ship and Fernand becomes intensely jealous of his friends success in life. He successfully gets Edmond imprisoned on an island, where fellow prisoner Abbe Faria (Richard Harris) teaches our hero to fence. Meanwhile, Fernand takes the opportunity to steal Dantes' fiancee. When Edmond finally escapes, it is with a view to settling the score with Fernand Mondego once and for all.


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The Feel of The Count of Monte Cristo
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Quite frankly, it's wet. It's also unconvincing. We are never shown the process that leads to Fernand's hatred of his friend or why he feels his own life is so inadequate in the first place. If this is to stop us feeling sympathetic toward him, then it works, but it also makes for a very shallow and sim
plified tale of good versus evil.

But my biggest criticism is that The Count of Monte Cristo doesn't embrace the theme of "revenge" enough. If your best friend has had you imprisoned and stolen your fiancee away from you, you must fell a certain amount of resentment. So why doesn't Edmond come up with a cunning plan that'll make Fernand suffer as much as he did? I suppose it is so that we side with Edmond, but it's not really true to what might happen in real life. There is no hatred, no fierce emotion and a distinct lack of backstabbing - just two men prancing around with swords. I'll forgive them, though, because they sure are pretty dashing.


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The Acting Quality in The Count of Monte Cristo
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Edmund Dantes (James Caviezel) is OK, but a little too much of a "goodie" for me. Mercedes (Dagmara Dominczyk) is surprisingly convincing for a character that could have just been used as "eye candy", but Fernand Mondego (Guy Pearce), like Dantes, is a little too shallow for my liking - he is just so stereotypically evil. Abbe Faria (Richard Harris) you might recognize - Harris played the headmaster in the Harry Potter movie. In this he excels, end of story. And Albert Mondego (Henry Cavil) does his best as a troubled teenager - if only he had been given a better part in the script.


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Why You Might Want to See The Count of Monte Cristo
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If you did like The Man in the Iron Mask, you'll like The Count of Monte Cristo because it is along similar lines. Fans of swashbuckling action should also rejoice - there's a fair bit of that. My wife claims to have enjoyed it greatly - but her judgement tends to rely exclusively on how good looking the star is (Caviezel scored nine out
of ten, in case you were interested!). If you do decide that you want to see The Count of Monte Cristo , see it at the theater and not on DVD or VHS - you won't appreciate the sheer scale of the locations otherwise.


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Detailed Information
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Running time - 131 mins. It really needs this long to tell the story, and you won't get bored because, despite the story-line lacking a bit, the scenery is a visual treat.

Rating and Suitability - PG (Parental Guidance) in the UK. The Count of Monte Cristo is fine for your children to see, but I'm not sure that it would keep younger kids all that entertained (if you do have young children, I recommend "Ice Age").

When to see it - As I say, The Count of Monte Cristo is definitely one to see in the theater, and not on DVD or VHS. You won't get the full impact of the camera-work and vastness of the landscape on a small screen (this is one of the reasons it gets four stars, not three like most films with average plots).

Summary: