The remake of The Count of Monte Cristo, which is screening at the Cannes Festival, offers great costume cinema. An old-school adventure movie for rainy Sundays
When you run out of ideas, you turn to Alexandre Dumas (the elder). That seems to be the motto in current French blockbuster cinema and there is actually little to object to. Dumas’ stories of revenge, adventure and conspiracies lend themselves to the cinema. Just recently, The Three Musketeers was remade in a lavish two-parter. Now comes The Count of Monte Cristo, featuring cloak-and-dagger action, scarred faces and a few new features
The adventure film tells the story of a decades-long revenge plot
Directed by Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte. The two have already gained Dumas experience when they wrote the screenplay for the most recent Musketeers films. However, they are probably better known as the creators of the play Le Prénom a.k.a. The First Name. This year, the German film version of the play is already getting its second (!) sequel with The Nickname. This has no bearing on the review of her new, serious adventure film, but I simply can’t keep information like this to myself
Watch the trailer for the new Monte Christo movie:
We have to do without an Adolf in this version of the Count of Monte Cristo, as there is not that much modernization. The focus is on the young sailor Edmond Dantès (Pierre Niney), who falls victim to a conspiracy at the end of the Napoleonic era.
His friend Morcef (Bastien Bouillon) envies him his relationship with Mercédès (Anaïs Demoustier). The demoted captain Danglars (Patrick Mille) blames Dantès for his professional decline and the public prosecutor Villefort (Laurent Lafitte) is simply corrupt. Together they have Dantès imprisoned.
However, they do not reckon with the sloppy bricklayer’s work on the prison island of Château d’If, nor with Abbé Faria (the great Pierfrancesco Favino in a supporting role), who is also imprisoned. The abbé teaches the young cellmate everything he knows, including the hiding place of a Templar treasure. As written by Dumas, Edmond Dantès is able to escape. Instead of retiring to a South Sea island, Dantès uses his wealth for revenge. With elaborate plans, he wants to drive the trio to ruin.
A few changes, but old-fashioned entertainment in the new Monte Christo
We shouldn’t expect revolutionary changes to the Dumas material or its realization, the directing duo concentrates too much on the lowest common denominator of contemporary adventure films: lush Mediterranean landscapes, star faces and slight corrections, especially to the female characters of the 19th century novel.
(The conspirators in The Count of Monte Cristo)
Dantès may appear decades later as the Count of Monte Cristo in an outfit suitable for an audition for Matrix 5, but he remains a classic Dumas hero. Deep down, a good soul whose youth and freedom have been taken from him, until only calculating hatred can be seen from the outside. Pierre Niney (Frantz) often disappears under masks, but never lets us forget the conflict between his old and new identities. Is revenge really what he should do with his reclaimed life? As soon as Mercédès, played heartbreakingly by Anaïs Demoustier, casts a glance at the count, he is transformed into a tragic figure.
The former slave Haydée (Anamaria Vartolomei), who falls for the count in the book but is given her own little arc in the film, has been modernized. Overall, there is a greater focus on the fate of the next generation, which is infected by Monte Cristo’s plan for revenge, as if the mysterious Count were Patient Zero in the post-Napoleonic calm. The three conspirators, who, unlike in the book, barely rise above their status as villains, suffer as a result.
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In contrast, The Count of Monte Cristo shines with an engaging heist-movie energy as we watch the sinister count plot and orchestrate his revenge. Sometimes this takes the form of a haunted house flick, sometimes a courtroom thriller. Despite all the tragedy, the Count and his latest film have plenty of entertainment potential.
