Helmer Kevin Reynolds has previously tried his hand at larger-than-life adventure stories - "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," "Waterworld" - with wildly uneven results. And he's all the more eager to mete out rough justice when he discovers that Mercedes, thinking him dead, married Mondego.
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Armed with more money than you can shake a stick at, plus the stick, he returns to France and establishes himself as - yes, you guessed it! - the Count of Monte Cristo.ĭisguised with a new identity, he launches a meticulous plot to punish his betrayers.
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As the two men forge strong bonds during long months of tunneling, Faria teaches Dantes how to handle a sword and where to find a long-hidden treasure.Īfter making his escape, briefly joining a band of pirates, and earning the unstinting loyalty of Jacopo (Luis Guzman), a comic-relief cutthroat who becomes his faithful companion, Dantes follows Faria's directions to the fortune stashed on the island of Monte Cristo. Dantes endures 13 such whippings before Abbe Faria (Harris), a long-imprisoned solider-turned-cleric, mistakenly burrows into Dantes' cell while attempting to escape. With the eager assistance of Villefort (James Frain), a magistrate desperate to hide his father's inconvenient allegiance to Napoleon, and Danglars (Albie Woodington), a veteran first mate with long-standing grievances against our hero, Mondego arranges for Dantes to be arrested for trying to deliver the message from Elba.ĭantes is summarily shipped off to Chateau D'If, a hellish island prison where the sadistic warden (Michael Wincott) celebrates the anniversary of each prisoner's arrival with a brutal flogging. And he's not the kind of guy who lets friendship get in the way. But Dantes' best buddy, Fernand Mondego (Pearce), a moneyed and amoral libertine, also desires the fair maiden. Once home, Dantes resumes his romance with the beautiful Mercedes (Dagmara Dominczyk). Even more unfortunately, Dantes naively accepts a message from Bonaparte (an authoritative cameo by Alex Norton) to deliver to one of the banished emperor's friends back in France. Wolpert even manages to clarify for contemporary auds the squabbles of opposing political forces in 19th century France in the wake of Napoleon Bonaparte's banishment to Elba.ĭrama begins as Edmond Dantes (Caviezel), an idealistic young French sailor, leads a boatload of companions to Elba in search of medical help for their ship's captain. Scripter Jay Wolpert does an intelligent job of compressing and reconstituting his source material, remaining faithful to the spirit - and, to a surprising degree, the letter - of Dumas' original narrative. Strong cross-generational appeal should ensure good-to-excellent biz during theatrical run and countless rentals when pic resurfaces on homevid. With a well-cast Jim Caviezel establishing star credentials in the title role, and a first-rate supporting cast led by Guy Pearce and Richard Harris, pic boasts a compelling human element to complement lively storytelling and sporadic action highlights.
Alexandre Dumas' classic tale of injustice and comeuppance, revenge and redemption, is rousingly retold in "The Count of Monte Cristo," a lavishly mounted and appealingly old-fashioned swashbuckler with nary a trace of wink-wink irony or revisionist embellishment.
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