The Count of Monte Cristo (2002)

Dir: Kevin Reynolds

Country: UK/USA

Runtime: 118 min
Language: English
Cast: James Caviezel (Edmond Dantès/The Count of Monte Cristo), Guy Pearce (Fernand Mondego, Count of Morcerf), Richard Harris (Abbé Faria), James Frain (Monsieur de Villefort), Dagmara Dominczyk (Mercédès Iguanada), Luis Guzmán (Jacopo)

Review © 2002 Branislav L. Slantchev

Everyone now knows the story, as stolen for the gazillionth time from that Hollywood hack, Alexandre Dumas, also known as Dumbass in insider circles. That's right, this was not an adaptation of a classic novel of revenge written by a famous French author. No, this was the toned-down, updated, slicked, thoroughly disemboweled skeleton of a story overheard by a talentless hack in a modern Hollywood office as another talentless hack was summarizing the Cliff's Notes of a version stolen by yet another talentless hack from the blurb on the back of the abridged mass paperback edition of the synopsis of the novel.

The film can be neatly divided into three parts. In Part One, a young charming, and very stupid (I think we were supposed to think he was ingenuous and naive, yet he was a most undeniably mutton headed imbecile), Edmond Dantès (James Caviezel) is back-stabbed by his envious friend Fernand Mondego (Guy Pearce) who has designs on the former's stunningly beautiful, though not very expressive, fiancee Mercédès (Dagmara Dominczyk). Through the machinations of a sleazy lawyer, as opposed to a non-sleazy fictional one, I suppose, who goes by the name of Villefort (James Frain), Edmond is packed off to the sunny resort of Chateau d'If, still a popular tourist attraction 200 years later.

In Part Deux, Edmond grows much hair. He does not seem very happy at the resort despite the earnest annual efforts of the warden to show him his tanlines. Edmond grows desperate when he runs out of stones to count and just when he begins to ponder the existential reality of God, a ray of hope burrows through the floor of his cell. This turns out to be Faria (Richard Harris in the one truly gifted performance in this film), who has defied the laws of geometry and has managed to dig a tunnel down from the floor of his cell up into the floor of Edmond's cell. If a most blatant display of favoritism, Faria has a small library at his disposal, and he proceeds to teach Edmond the intricacies of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations and Macchiavelli's The Prince. In return Edmond burrows with him. Ah, the old dude is also a fighter to boot, and so he also manages to instruct Edmond to be faster than falling water, more agile than a cornered rat, and a duelist that can defeat even that other guy, who has practiced it all his life. Near the end of this part, the priest dies, leaving The Map with Big X for Treasure, and our hero effects the most unlikely escape with elements of a Houdini act.

In Part Three, Edmond, who is now called Count of Monte Cristo, embarks on a vengeance spree, or, as it was portrayed in the film, on a complicated, quite expensive, pointless, sparkless, unconvincing, and unimaginative dragging tale of tedious revenge. Caviezel just can't pull it off as the wronged guy who burns with passionate hatred. The comic relief provided by that droll Luis Guzmán (Jacopo) was the one refreshing element. In the end, Edmond offs Fernand, ruins the career of Villefort, nails the ravishingly beautiful Mercédès, acquires a son, and is generally very pleased with himself. So much so that he manages to utter to most reprehensible words in the film: When looking at the Chateau d'If, the place where he spent many a happy years in his youth, and now his property, he remarks that he had intended to tear it down, but now, because all that he loves is romping the beaches with him, he just sees no point in doing so, and will presumably keep the Chateau in its old function.

Some other annoyances. After spending 13 years at the Chateau d'If, Edmond does not lose weight, and, in fact, seems so well toned and muscular that one could swear he spent the decade rollicking about on some tropical beach in close proximity to a well-stocked gym. When he emerges from his scathing ordeal, and it was truly scathing---witness his torn clothes and long hair---he does not seem to have aged a bit. It was quite disconcerting to see his close friends, enemies, and lover not be able to recognize his dashing self. I wish the goatee could do the same for me!

There is some strikingly bad dialogue as well (that's not even counting the anachronisms), like Mercédès insisting that "God is in everything. Even in a kiss." Please, not me, not then (given the dental hygiene of the period). There is also the occasional unintentional hilarity (my favorite), like in Mercédès saying to Fernand, "I don't want to be your whistle." Sublime poetry.

There are also obvious problems with depth, or lack of it, of the characters. I won't bother mentioning the portrayal of Fernand by Guy Pearce, even Egyptian pictures have more dimension than this cardboard cutout of a villain. I think Reynolds must have intended him to be this unredeemable bully, so that the audience would conveniently hate him, but he only succeeded in making him unbelievable. He's just too bad to be really bad. Mercédès, the thankless slut, not only manipulated Fernand into marrying her when she was pregnant---and this at a time where she did NOT know about his treachery; for all she knew, he was her dead hubby's best friend---and then not only has him raise her pathetic son, but also has the temerity to suggest that Fernand never "pleased" her. If that was supposed to be a reference to his table manners, I understand. Also, the son, or, as it turned out, the thankless mongrel of a bastard. Yeah, maybe he was ready to lose a finger in Rome, but he was quick to denounce his father---yes, the REAL father, the one who brought him up, and whom he supposedly adored and respected so much---in favor of the claim of his biological daddy, whose purpose was to off his other dad, and elope with his mother. I don't care how much "history" there is (as Edmond warned him), a son does not do these things. He also does not smile benevolently during the closing scene. Ridiculous.

To answer Ebert's question (of why Edmond moved Faria's corpse to his own cell thus betraying the existence of the tunnel, which in case of recapture "might come in handy"), in case of recapture I think the jailers would wonder how he got to Faria's cell anyway.

Now, after all this, readers will perhaps be surprised to find out that I enjoyed the film quite a bit. It has the classic unabashed flavor of old swashbuckling movies, and none of the vulgar pretense of the "new" adaptations, like the abominable The Musketeer. The performances, with some exceptions, were rock solid and the shortcomings are those of Reynolds, who just can't direct people very well. It is too much to expect that Dumas' novel can be adapted in under 2 hours, and for what it does, the film succeeds remarkably well. Good fun that I will never own on DVD, but that I do not regret seeing on the big screen (anything smaller would be a waste).

February 21, 2002