Having watched this adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo half a dozen times, I clearly enjoy it, quite a lot actually. Not that I’m oblivious to its faults, mainly some dodgy character acting and wig work, the actual revenge scenes lacking punch and the finale looking like they misjudged the budget and knocked it together in a weekend.

The central story is just so damn fascinating, I love everything in the Chateau d'if, the escape, beach scene and the creation of the Count with the opening and ending just pasting muster. Its also well performed by Caviezel, Pierce and Harris and the inclusion of Wincott, Guzman and superboy add to the interest. A guilty pleasure one might surmise.

Due…

"There are 72,519 stones in my walls. I've counted them many times."
"But have you named them yet?"

The Count of Monte Cristo is tremendously underrated. It is one of the few - actually maybe even the only - more recent film that captured the feel of the great classic adventure movies. Moreover, it stays close to the source material, which is perhaps my favorite novel of all time.

I haven't seen the other film adaptations of The Count of Monte Cristo, but I doubt there has ever been a better Abbé Faria than Richard Harris in one of his last starring roles. The action scenes in Monte Cristo, though small in number and scale, are fast and perfectly executed.…

As a swiftly paced, populist adaptation that never pretends to convey the depth of the classic novel, it nevertheless entertains and engrosses through its sweeping character arc. It's a little too simplified and comical to take all that seriously (to my never-ending annoyance, my brothers would often comically quote this entire film), with an edit job that keeps characters and plot developments at arm's length, but it does capture the appeal of the novel whilst effectively drawing in a new generation of fans. It might be one of the more effective examples of the recent wave of Dumas flicks. For those with a soft spot for Reynolds problematic but functionally compelling, family-friendly films, this will hit the spot with some…

"Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout...'Do your worst, for I will do mine.' Then the fates will know you as we know you...."

The reason this tale of revenge stands out in my mind....is how bloodless it is for the most part. Hey I love me some gore: I salivate at the Kill Bills and Djangos and Oldboys; I even have room in my heart for trashy exploitative rape revenge thrillers written by men. But the Count doesn't roll like that: his revenge…

“The Count of Monte Cristo” is a classic revenge tale that feels as if it was ripped from the Golden Age of Hollywood that stars Jim Caviezel as the Batman-esque Count.

PLOT

A simple merchant sailor named Edmond Dantes is wrongfully convicted of being a spy by corrupt officials (one of whom was his best friend) because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and is imprisoned in the hellish prison Château d'If for the remainder of his life. Just when Dantes is about to give in to despair another inmate named Abbé Faria tunnels into his room and the two form a friendship. Over the next eight years Abbé Faria schools Dantes extensively in science, language,…