"A strange thing happened at this summer's Cannes film festival," said Kevin Maher in The Times. While all eyes were glued to the big Hollywood offerings, the real attraction turned out to be this "indecently spectacular" film – a French adaptation of Alexandre Dumas's 19th-century adventure novel that cost £35m but "looks like a $200m Tinseltown barnstormer".
Made by the team that brought us the recent hit adaptation of "The Three Musketeers", it stars Pierre Niney as Edmond Dantès, the young sailor who's falsely accused of treachery, and locked up in a grim island prison. Years later, he escapes, finds some hidden treasure and – as the rich and powerful Count of Monte Cristo – seeks vengeance on the friends who betrayed him. The makers of the film were "smart and confident enough" to amplify the "obvious superhero echoes" of Edmond's transformation into the suave, swashbuckling Count, but have cleverly avoided making the chief baddie "a cartoon villain".
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Film reviews: A House of Dynamite, After the Hunt, and It Was Just an AccidentFeature A nuclear missile bears down on a U.S. city, a sexual misconduct allegation rocks an elite university campus, and a victim of government terror pursues vengeance
-
Book reviews: ‘Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife’ and ‘Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong With Baseball and How to Fix It’Feature Gertrude Stein’s untold story and Jane Leavy’s playbook on how to save baseball
-
Rachel Ruysch: Nature Into ArtFeature Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, through Dec. 7
-
Music reviews: Olivia Dean, Madi Diaz, and Hannah FrancesFeature “The Art of Loving,” “Fatal Optimist,” and “Nested in Tangles”
-
Gilbert King’s 6 favorite books about the search for justiceFeature The journalist recommends works by Bryan Stevenson, David Grann, and more
-
Ready for the apocalypseFeature As anxiety rises about the state of the world, the ranks of preppers are growing—and changing.
-
A little-visited Indian Ocean archipelagoThe Week Recommends The paradise of the Union of the Comoros features beautiful beaches, colourful coral reefs and lush forests
-
Diane Keaton: the Oscar-winning star of Annie HallIn the Spotlight Something’s Gotta Give actor dies from pneumonia at the age of 79
