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movie review - The Count of Monte Cristo

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Vancouver, 2002.03.09

This is an adaptation of the novel by Alexandre Dumas. It's about a young sailor with a beautiful fiancee, a strong sense of honour, and a promising career. All of these things are stripped away when he is wrongfully accused of treason and sent to hell on Earth in the form of a remote island prison.

He eventually gets free, and all hell breaks loose.

This is a quite beautiful movie, well cast, and nicely paced. And unlike so many other movies based on the work of Dumas, this has no jarring attempts at making it cool by modernising it in some fashion such as chirpy one liners.

Recommended.

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