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Director: Kevin Reynolds
Release Date: January 2002
Rating: PG-13 for adventure violence/swordplay and some sensuality
See it on Amazon
 A Classic Story
The Count of Monte Cristo, based off of the French novel by Alexandre Dumas, was written in 1845 and is one of those timeless treasures given as a reading assignment in high school. Among the tributes to this classic are the 11 movies that have been made in an attempt to capture the essence of the story. And why not? It's a great story.
A young, naive sailor, Edmond Dantes, is betrayed and accused of aiding the exiled Napoleon. He is sentenced to life imprisonment in an island fortress where he spends 14 years being punished unjustly before he escapes. He then spends the rest of his life taking revenge on those who wrongly accused him.
Too bad this film messed most of this up.
The movie had a lot going for it: good acting, beautiful set design, authentic costuming, and a riveting plot that has been around for over 150 years. Even with all that, the movie fails to draw the viewer into the story. It was difficult to identify or feel that what the characters were going through was real.
Although Dantes had been wrongly imprisoned for over 14 years, I felt no outrage. This is due largely to the lack of character building before his imprisonment. Then while he is in prison, the other characters are removed entirely and we have no idea what is happening with them until long after the fact. This diminishes any empathy the audience would normally feel.
Even when Dantes finally gets out of prison and takes vengeance on all of his enemies in an ironic fashion, it was not that exciting. In fact, it was pretty boring.
I'm not even going to get into the lame ending which was altered from the original storyline in the book.
At least they didn't modernize it
Even though the movie failed to make the experience a reality for the viewer, I was impressed that it avoided modernizing this story. There is no techno music, modern slang, or kung fu fighting that has become so popular in Hollywood-ized classic tales. For avoiding that, I do salute the makers.
Even with that going for it, The Count of Monte Cristo isn't really worth the effort of going to the theater for. Renting it might be an option, but even then one may be disappointed. That leaves watching it on TV when you have nothing to do.
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