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If the creators of the latest film version of Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo adapted Moby Dick, not only would the movie end with a triumphant Ahab fatally harpooning the great beast, but at the subsequent barbecue the crusty captain would also apologize to his Pequod crew—who've lived to tell the tale—for being so obsessive and crabby.
Adapting a massive novel into a faithful feature film is an unenviable job, but two notable successes in the last year have shown it's entirely possible. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was almost a scene-for-scene version of the book, while Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings seduced even rabid Tolkien fans with its stunningly persuasive re-creation of Middle Earth.
With The Count of Monte Cristo, of course, there's an added complexity: not just Dumas' novel itself to take into account but also a number of earlier film versions. In general, the more a classic has been adapted in various incarnations, the freer a movie or stage director feels to depart from the original. So adaptations of Shakespeare often take wild liberties—setting Romeo and Juliet in a garish city resembling Miami (Baz Luhrmann's 1996 version) or envisioning Hamlet's Denmark as a corporation in present-day New York (the 2000 film with Ethan Hawke).
When such bold reimaginings work, as these examples do, we don't carp about inaccuracies, because the adaptation has stayed true to the spirit of the original. At times, such an overhaul produces a film arguably better than its source. Forrest Gump is one example. The book by Winston Groom is meandering and ridiculous, featuring an ape as Forrest's best friend. The movie (winner of 1994's Best Picture Oscar) overcame these flaws.
But many movies that stray from their origins are not as well conceived, and it is difficult to understand the motivation behind the drastic changes. If the departures from the original seem capricious, out of touch with the heart of the work, even small discrepancies quickly become irritations, and radical changes become intolerable.
In this new Monte Cristo, directed by Kevin Reynolds (Waterworld, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves), Dumas' story serves only as a bare framework for the movie's plot: the good guy, Edmond Dantès, has everything going for him; jealous bad guys take it away; and the good guy returns as a new man to seek revenge. Except for character names and locations, the film more closely resembles 1998's The Mask of Zorro than it does Dumas' novel.
Why wouldn't the filmmakers have been content with the adventure, intrigue, and complex themes of Dumas' actual story? Granted, capturing the nuances of a novel like The Count of Monte Cristo would be a daunting challenge, but one wonders whether screenwriter Jay Wolpert read more than the first quarter of the book.
Some liberties are understandable (more action and fewer characters), and a few are entertaining additions (Napoleon gets screen time, for instance), but others (above all, the absurd Hollywood happy ending) sacrifice essential themes and meanings of the story. By changing the way Dantès executes his revenge and the consequences of those actions, this "reimagined" Monte Cristo consequently has different messages than Dumas' tale.
One of the most interesting differences is the way Dantès' faith journey is portrayed. This version places more emphasis on Dantès' Christian faith than most of its film predecessors—and in this sense, it might seem to be truer to the original than many previous adaptations. (It may be worth noting that Kevin Reynolds is the son of Baylor University past president and chancellor Herbert Reynolds, and Dantès is played by devout Catholic Jim Caviezel, who also starred in Frequency, another film with a religious dimension.) But the treatment of faith in the new film is ultimately strikingly different from that in the book.
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