THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (LE COMTE DE MONTE-CRISTO) movie poster | ©2025 Samuel Goldwyn Films/Pathe

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Pierre Niney, Bastien Bouillon, Anaïs Demoustier, Anamaria Vartolomei, Laurent Lafitte, Pierfrancesco Favino, Patrick Mille, Vassili Schneider, Julien De Saint Jean, Adèle Simphal, Bruno Raffaeli
Writers: Matthieu Delaporte & Alexandre de la Patellière, based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas
Directors: Matthieu Delaporte & Alexandre de la Patellière
Distributor: Samuel Goldwyn Films/Pathe
Release Date: December 20, 2024 (limited), January 3, 2025 (wide)

The new French-language film adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’s 1844 adventure novel THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (LE COMTE DE MONTE-CRISTO) is both visually sumptuous and dramatically engaging.

Directed and scripted by Matthieu Delaporte & Alexandre de la Patellière (who together wrote the screenplays for the two recent French THREE MUSKETEERS films), this COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO makes changes in some supporting characters and various details here and there, but the gist is the same.

In France, Napoleon has been deposed, and the current government is on the lookout for the former emperor’s allies.

Sailor Edmond Dantès (Pierre Niney) leaps into the ocean to rescue a woman, Angèle (Adèle Simphal), from a sinking ship. Edmond’s penny-pinching captain Danglars (Patrick Mille) berates him for the heroic act. However, the ship owner (Bruno Raffaeli) is so impressed with Edmond’s bravery that he promotes the young man to captain and fires Danglars, much to the latter’s fury.

Edmond is now well-off enough to propose to his beloved and adoring Mercédès Herrera (Anaïs Demoustier), a high-born young woman who is also the cousin of Edmond’s friend Fernand de Moncerf (Bastien Bouillon).

Alas, Edmond and Mercédès are blissfully oblivious to Fernand’s class snobbery, as well as his designs on his cousin for himself. This, combined with Danglars’s enduring enmity and the secrets of prosecutor de Villefort (Laurent Lafitte), results in Edmond being arrested just as he and Mercédès are being married.

Edmond spends the next fourteen years in an island prison, where he meets Abbé Faria (Pierfrancesco Favino). As the two bond, the old man has quite the tale to tell, and he wants Edmond to benefit from it.

When Edmond finally escapes, he is able to put Faria’s information to good use and reinvents himself as the wealthy and mysterious Count of Monte Cristo. With the help of two young people he’s rescued, Andrea (Julien de Saint Jean) and Haydée (Anamaria Vartolomei), Edmond aims to find out who wronged him and then get revenge.

First and foremost, we remain intrigued throughout. Directors/writers Delaporte & de la Patellière drop us right in the action and make sure there’s never a dull moment thereafter. Even when Edmond is in solitary confinement in prison, there’s always something to see or hear or absorb, sometimes all at once.

Then there’s the jaw-dropping beauty and scope of the production, which was shot in Malta. When we see Marseilles Harbor, it’s full of nineteenth-century ships; when Edmond is on the island on Monte Cristo, there’s a stone staircase running the length of one side. The interiors and costumes and props all contribute to our easy acceptance that we are where the film tells us we are.

Additionally, Niney as Edmond draws our empathy with his performance. We observe him both feeling and thinking at all times. Even when he’s been through a lot, he’s still capable of moments of joy, and we don’t doubt that he’s shrewd enough for all of the scheming he does.

The rest of the cast is fine as well, with Demoustier as a worthy, passionate Mercédès. Mille and Lafitte are expansive villains, and Favino is highly likable as Faria. Vartolomei handles Haydée’s ambivalence well, although it must be said that she is incredibly non-Middle Eastern-looking, given that Haydée is meant to be the daughter of an Arabic regional leader.

The filmmakers have wisely made some tweaks to the original, with replacements of some characters, alterations to others, and shortcuts to keep things lively and coherent. All of these seem well-advised.

If you want an old-school big-scale historical that moves briskly and keeps us involved, this edition of THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO delivers.

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Article: Movie Review: THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (LE COMTE DE MONTE CRISTO)

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