Producer: Dimitri Rassam   Directors: Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patellière   Screenplay: Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patellière   Cast: Pierre Niney, Bastien Bouillon, Anaïs Demoustier, Anamaria Vartolomei, Laurent Lafitte, Pierfrancesco Favino, Patrick Mille, Vassili Schneider, Julien De Saint Jean, Julie De Bona, Adèle Simphal, Stéphane Varupenne, Marie Narbonne, Bruno Raffaelli, Abde Maziane and Bernard Blancan   Distributor: Samuel Goldwyn Pictures

Grade: B+

So many movies today are violent revenge tales that it’s refreshing to turn to one that takes a granddaddy of the genre and does it proud.  This latest version of Alexandre Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Cristo,” which was first published in 1844-45 and has been filmed many times, is, despite a running-time of nearly three hours, necessarily a streamlined, simplified version of the extraordinarily dense and complex original, but it’s sumptuous and satisfying on its own.

Pierre Niney plays Edmond Dantès, who while serving on a French ship during Napoleon’s attempted return to power in 1815, rescues Angèle (Adèle Simphal), a shipwrecked woman, embarrassing the ship’s treasurer and current master, Danglars (Patrick Mille), who prefers to let her drown.  When the ship arrives at Marseille, its owner Morrel (Bruno Raffaelli) dismisses Danglars and promotes Dantès to the captaincy.  That enflames Danglars’ desire for revenge, and he has a card to play: a letter the late captain had entrusted to Dantès, compromising because of its Napoleonic sentiments.

When Edmond goes home to visit his father Louis (Bernard Blancan) and wed his fiancée Mercédès Herrera (Anaïs Demoustier), he’s arrested as a partisan of Bonaparte.  His cousin Fernand de Morcerf (Bastien Bouillon) vows to defend him against the charge, but when brought before prosecutor Gérard de Villefort (Laurent Lafitte) instead betrays him in hopes of marrying Mercédès himself.  Villefort also has reason to put Dantès away since Angèle is his sister, and her involvement in Napoleon’s attempted return could endanger his position, and her knowledge of his affair with Dangler’s wife is an additional problem.

So Edmond is unceremoniously sent to the infamous Château d’If prison, where he’s expected to die.  Instead he befriends the eccentric prisoner Abbé Faria (Pierfrancesco Favino), who enlists him in an attempt to burrow their way to freedom, educates him in arts and letters over their eight years’ confinement, and tells him of a fabulous treasure secreted on the island of Monte Cristo.  When the Abbé perishes in a collapse of the tunnel, Dantès hides in his dead man’s body bag, which is tossed into the sea, allowing him to swim to safety.

Finding that Mercédès has married Fernand and borne him a son, Albert, Edmund returns to the sea to perfect his martial skills and travels to Monte Cristo, where he finds the treasure and uses it to create a new persona for himself as the mysterious Count of Monte Cristo.  Returning to France, he locates Angèle, whom her brother and Danglers had forced into prostitution; and though on verge of death, she reveals that she had saved the illegitimate son Villefort had tried to bury alive after his birth and placed him in an orphanage.  Edmond finds the young man, André (Julien de Saint Jean), and enlists him as an ally posing as the count’s ward Prince Andrea Cavalcanti.  He also enlists a beautiful young woman, Haydée (Anamaria Vartolomei), who, as will eventually be revealed, has cause to seek revenge against Fernand, who is now an illustrious general, just as Danglers has built himself a prosperous career as a shipping magnate. 

Thus prepared, Dantès undertakes a complicated revenge scheme against all who have wronged him.  It involves worming his way into Fernand’s good graces by saving his son Albert (Vassili Schneider) in a staged assault and then having Haydée seduce the young man.  That in turn gives him entrée into the circle of Danglars and Villefort, and an opportunity for André, in his princely guise, to romance Danglars’ daughter Eugénie (Marie Narbonne) while also harboring hostility to his father Villefort.

All comes to a head when Dantès arranges the collapse of Danglars’ maritime empire into his hands and the revelation of Villefort’s crimes at resultant trial.  There are complications—an impetuous act by André, the blooming of true romance between Haydée and Albert, the revelation of Haydée’s identity, a plea to Edmond from Mercédès, who has recognized her former fiancé—but a couple of well-choreographed duels, marked by rousing exhibitions of swordsmanship, end matters on a satisfying note. 

Those who have read Dumas’ massive novel will recognize how severely Delaporte and de la Patellière have abridged and altered the narrative: only Edmond’s impersonation of Lord Halifax is retained to any extent, and especially given the prominence put on little Maximilien Morrel (Joachim Simon) in the early meeting between Dantès and his father, it’s surprising, and disappointing, that Dumas’ treatment of his later life is simply excised.  But they’ve been generally faithful to its tone, and they’ve ably assumed the directorial reins wielded by Martin Bourboulon for the duo’s previous Dumas adaptation, the two part version of “The Three Musketeers.” 

They’ve carried over much of the crew—including production designer Stéphane Taillasson and costumer Thierry Delettre, as well as cinematographer Nicolas Bolduc—and visually the result is equally splendid, though far brighter and less mud-drenched than was the case in the earlier films.  Editor Celia Lafitedupont, who was replaced by Stan Collet in the second Bourboulon installment, returns, and manages to keep most of the plot convolutions reasonably clear, though there remain a few muddled moments, while veteran Jérôme Rebotier’s robust score possesses all the swagger one could wish.

As Dantès Niney cuts a figure more like a hawk than an eagle, but he captures the character’s cunning, and provides ample dash when required.  Mille, Bouillon and Lafitte are all hissable, with Mille coming across as particularly loathsome; Demoustier is a lovely, conflicted Mercédès, while  Schneider, Vartolomei and de Saint Jean make an unbearably handsome trio of youngsters.  Favino chews the scenery engagingly as the Abbé.

In sum, while some devotees of Dumas’ novel may regret the changes Delaporte and de la Patellière have made to the narrative, most viewers will find this “Count” an enjoyable variant of it.  

Incidentally, an eight-part English-language mini-series based on the book has just appeared on European television.  It’s directed by Bille August, whose 1988 adaptation of “Les Misérables” is one of the better adaptations of that book.  It will probably follow Dumas more closely, and one of the more enterprising streaming services should snap it up. Yet another “Count” would be most welcome.