The Lowdown

This is a film version made in 2002 with Jim Caviezel and Guy Pearce; it sticks pretty much to the original plot, but in a stripped-down way, with lots of the peripherals omitted (and with some major differences at the end). It's directed by Kevin Reynolds, who also did Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and this is in a similar vein to that film. It's a little over two hours long, which sometimes can be a warning sign with these adaptations.

Some Observations

• Low score for their Danglars in this one. He really is relegated to pretty much a non-role. You can get a lot out of Danglars if you put the effort in, but I guess with only a limited amount of time you have to prioritise.
• I saw this film before reading the book, and I eventually did read it I was surprised to learn that Edmond and Fernand are not Best Friends in the original story. This is one of the changes that most often gets made, and it's one that really brings something to the story. In this version, Fernand is substantially altered; he's now the son of a rich noble (not a fisherman) and all of the plot about him being in the army and betraying Ali Pasha is omitted. He's spectacularly caddish and moves to the role of Chief Villain. He also says the word 'Beauchamps' in a really excellent way at 1:34:50.
• The other big change is that Albert is now revealed to actually be Edmond's son and not Fernand's ("Of course! THAT was why she married the cad!"). Some people were annoyed about this, but if you watch the DVD extras the screenwriter (Jay Wolpert) provides a pretty strong rebuttal: "come on - that story was crying out for an illegitimate child!".
• Of all the actors in the different adaptations, Jim Caviezel may be the best at portraying both a convincing Edmond and a convincing Count. A lot of them fall down at this stage, but he pulls off both the naivety and the imperiousness very well.
• Bertuccio, Baptistin and Jacopo (and perhaps Ali) are amalgamated into Jacapo in this one. Portrayed ably by Luis Guzmán, who is always excellent.
• Some great, swashbuckling sword fighting in this. It's a common misconception that the original Count of Monte Cristo story actually has any sword fights in it (apart from one flashback with Noirtier). Of course, just having Fernand get stabbed through the chest at the end (instead of something more deliciously ironic) might be disappointing for some, but by that point it's likely you'll have bought into the characters enough for it to be gripping.
• The score by Edward Shearmur also excellent.

The Verdict

This version is excellent. The tone is quite specific; you can definitely see the read-across with Robin Hood: it's trying to be a reasonably serious adventure most of the time but will occasionally drop in some off-the-wall humour. They take some liberties with the story and change it to a happy ending, and it suffers from the old problem of just not really being able to cover everything in two hours (as such, you don't really get enough of the Count hanging around in Paris planning his terrible, ironic revenge against his betrayers) but, faced with this problem I think they made the right choices in terms of which characters should take precedence, and Guy Pearce is delightfully dastardly as Fernand. It seems like the kind of film that didn't have any right to be any good, but somehow it slipped through the net and is excellent.

Characters and Plot Elements