THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (2024)

I have a strong childhood memory of reading a picture-book version of this Alexandre Dumas story, maybe in the 'Look and Learn' magazine.

Given that this latest film adaptation runs to nearly 3 hours yet is described as a streamlined version, what I read as a boy must have been very abridged.  

That it has stayed with me all these years is a testament to the power of what is the ultimate revenge narrative: innocent man is framed for a crime he didn't commit, is left to rot for the rest of his life in an island prison, manages to escape and acquire a massive fortune, enters high society under a new identity, and avenges himself on the three men who were responsible for his incarceration. 

It's a terrific tale, and this sumptuous adaptation does it full justice, provided you overlook that the writers have made wholesale changes to the original.

Rest assured, I'm not going to even begin to try to enumerate all the changes, most of which I am sure are justified.

However there are some things in the film that seemed odd to me, which turn out to be additions or variations.

For example in the film Edmond and the Abbé Faria now spend several years building an escape tunnel which turns out to be an irrelevancy given that Edmond ends up escaping exactly as in the novel, not involving the tunnel at all.  

And then, ridiculously, the film gives the impression that when Edmond swims from the island prison he happens to come ashore within walking distance of his childhood home, from which he can then hop onto a ship that conveniently happens to still be there after all the intervening years.  In the novel, much more believably Edmond comes ashore on another island, from which it takes him several months to eventually get to the island of Monte Cristo.   

The most important change concerns the resolution of the relationship between Edmond and Mercédès, the woman he was going to marry before his arrest, who then marries Fernand de Norcerf (one of the three villains of the piece).  

Is there going to be a happy ending in which Edmond and Mercédès resume their love affair (presumably with Fernand dead), or instead is Edmond's thirst for vengeance such that this is impossible?

The novel and film tackle this question in different ways, neither of which is entirely satisfactory.

In the novel Fernand kills himself, Mercédès gets to live out her days alone, and Edmond lives happily ever after with Haydée.  Who's Haydée I hear you ask?  Well, she's the daughter of Ali Pasha of Janina, who was betrayed by Fernand some way back.  

In the film, Edmond refrains from killing Fernand when he has the chance, and leaves France to spend his days sailing the world alone it seems.  What happens to Mercédès is left up in the air.  

We do get something of a happy ending in that Albert and Haydée have fallen in love with each other, Albert being the son of Fernand and Mercédès, and a more age-appropriate husband for Haydée than Edmond.  

Notwithstanding these quibbles this film thoroughly deserves its commercial and critical success.  It has managed to take what must be a very unwieldy novel and turn it into a gorgeous looking swashbuckling story, which in its latter stages has echoes of Mission: Impossible about it (an idea I have lifted from one of the reviews). 

After all, Ethan Edmond is a master of disguise, he puts together some intricate plans which require his targets to behave exactly as he anticipates, and he has assembled a small team to help him, comprising Haydée and André.  André is the son of Prosecutor Gerard de Villefort (one of Edmond's three nemeses), who buried Andre alive when he was only a few hours old, so understandably André is happy to join the Count in seeking retribution.

Dramatically speaking the highlight of the film is a courtroom scene where the Count's plans to ruin both de Villefort and his third nemesis Danglars thrillingly come to fruition.  

Sadly André doesn't get a happy ending because his hate then causes him stab his father to death, leading to his own death immediately after.

This is the point where the Count's plans start to unravel as Haydée turns against him.    

Anyway, that's enough plot.  Suffice to say that this film is terrifically entertaining.   

RATING: ✓ Cheers