10/15

Featured in La grande semaine: Episode #113 (2024)

Scenario

After escaping from an island prison where he spent 14 years for being wrongly accused of treason, Edmond Dantès returns as the Count of Monte Cristo to exact revenge on the men who betrayed him. With an estimated budget of €42.9 million, The Count of Monte Cristo is the most expensive French film of 2024. As Albert watches Hydee sing and play the guitar, it becomes very obvious that he isn’t even touching the strings half the time.. Once upon a time in France a movie wasn’t a movie if it didn’t have Alain Delon in it, then it was Depardieu for too long, before the 70s to 10 years ago, for too long, now we have Pierre Niney, he’s only 35, so we might be afraid that Gerard-itis could strike here too. It seems like he was usually the main character in every French movie/series last year.

He wasn’t so much

I don’t see a reason for that. The first two had at least some kind of presence. Maybe an annoying one, but a presence. A bit of a girly boy and yet they cast him in very masculine roles. Anyway, this viewer here is already 24 years old.

VERY "traditional" What’s good here?

Practically the second coming of age in the movie. It’s okay that except for the drone footage could have been taken in the 50s. The story, but that’s Dumas; some say it’s been improved. I don’t remember the book, so take their word for it. The police at Woke Studios managed to shoehorn a lesbian joke into it; why are we getting rid of it?

Really, the costumes

The locations, the castles. Oh, yes, spot on. The stunningly beautiful actresses, especially the young French-Romanian actress Anamaria Vartolomei, did she really sing those songs? Excellent, but overall it’s pedestrian and I don’t understand the rave reviews all the way through unless you’ve never been to the cinema. It’s a good film that will NOT bore you.

Mainstream High Street watching

The best I can offer here.