I watched some DVDs I borrowed from my sister last night. One of them was Alexander Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo, the recent version one with actors Jim Caviezel, Guy Pearce and Dagmara Dominczyk. If you’ve never heard of Jim C., he’s the lead actor in Angel Eyes, alongside Jennifer Lopez. He’s also the lead in the soon-to-come The Passion, directed by Mel Gibson. Guy P. was the lead for Time Machine, which I think wasn’t too advertised to be that popular, but I found it a good movie nonetheless. Dagmara D. I have not seen before, but she did remind me a lot of Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Well, it certainly wasn’t as I was expecting. I used to remember the old version of The Count…, where Richard Chamberlain was the lead. This movie had a happy ending, which I enjoyed very much. I also watched how the screenwriter changed some bits from the book, and I think he did that pretty well. This was one of the best historical movies I have seen in ages and I keep kicking myself for not seeing it any sooner.
If you want to read the book, I suggest you go ahead and do so. Fortunately, there are a few sites that has the entire book in it:
The Count of Monte Cristo – literature.org
The Count of Monte Cristo – litrix.com
The Count of Monte Crist – online-literature.com
Enjoy!
I Have Cramps 
I also found that one to be pretty entertaining. Just never show it to a Dumas purist. (I got the purist to concede that they couldn’t possibly work the princess into a 2 hour film, but she didn’t stop shrieking about mostly everything after the Count’s “introduction” to society. She also conceded that Jim Caviezel looked good, but…)
Had to love Richard Harris in it, too – and Luis Guzman, who cracked me up with his quick solution (“bam, bam, bam”) to revenge. :)
Yep, the screenwriter did good work on it. I loved that saying “God has the corner of His eye on you”. Encore! Encore! :)