Full Movie Roast: The 2002 movie, The Count of Monte Cristo, starring Jim Caviezel and Guy Pearce

The 2002 movie, The Count of Monte Cristo (starring Jim Caviezel and Guy Pearce) is an old-fashioned action-adventure romp. It made money, has above-average audience ratings on various online movie review aggregator sites, and is *crucially* the only exposure to The Count of Monte Cristo that much of the American general public has ever had.

If you’re willing to shut your brain off, grab some popcorn, and enjoy light, simple entertainment, the movie absolutely serves a purpose.

But. One doesn’t even need to be a Monte Cristo devotee to notice the logic leaps and plot holes. It’s loaded with unintentional comedy gold. So let’s have a close look and... mercilessly deconstruct it!

PART ONE: EXCITING EXCURSION ON ELBA

Fernand Mondego (later revealed to be an aristocrat- specifically a Viscount) is inexplicably onboard the Pharaon for the entire voyage. He’s supposedly shipowner Morrel’s “representative” (???). Since when do aristocrats work on ships?🤣
Dantès is an idiot. Hoping to save his sick captain by landing on Elba (of all places), he fires a flare gun into the air and gets the attention of a troop of understandably paranoid English dragoons 💂guarding Napoleon. Total candidate for the Darwin Awards. What could possibly go wrong?
Result: Extraneous swordfight #1, followed immediately by a slugfest. Maybe Edmond should have cobbled together a white flag of truce before even setting off to Elba?
Napoleon himself asks Dantès to deliver an “innocent, sentimental letter to an old soldier” in exchange for his physician’s services. Dantès, being a sucker, agrees. Cue a long, lethargic scene of the Captain being seriously ill. Why are we spending this much time on Elba?
The letter is addressed to “M. Clarion.” Why was Noirtier renamed? Was there a trademark dispute? Did someone think audiences couldn’t handle a French name with gravitas?
And finally: why is Fernand even hanging out with Dantès at all? Fernand is the son of a Count-an aristocrat. The film implies he and Edmond grew up together as childhood best friends.
Really? Either Fernand is shockingly progressive for the era, or the movie has quietly bulldozed class distinctions because they were inconvenient.

PART TWO: LANDING AT MARSEILLES

The Pharaon docks at Marseilles, and the Captain’s dead body is carried ashore. Yuck.
In an age before refrigeration, why was the ship hauling around a corpse? This isn’t Weekend at Bernie’s: 1815 Nautical Edition.
M. “Clarion” (the artist formerly known as Noirtier) shows up at Morrel’s office asking some pretty self-incriminating questions. Why is he openly asking about the ship stopping at Elba and whether someone went ashore? Why is he leaving his real name?
It then becomes a comedy of errors. Was Edmond supposed to be the delivery boy, locating “Clarion” and giving him the letter? Or was “Clarion” supposed to find Edmond? The movie says both are true! 🤣
Villefort’s wife, Valentina, is introduced, and she is so frumpy that I initially assumed she was his mother. This turns out to be awkward, but not surprising.
Fernand wants Mercédès as his wife. Again with the progressivism! He’s a Viscount, soon to be a Count, and he wants to marry a fishmonger’s daughter? Either Fernand is a radical egalitarian, or the movie has quietly decided class distinctions are optional or unimportant.
Fernand then drinks with a very grungy “first mate” Danglars, because of course he does. Our Viscount is perfectly happy to drink, plot, and commiserate with the hoi polloi.
So let’s take stock: Fernand fraternizes and drinks with sailors, grew up as the BFF of a clerk’s son, wants to marry a working-class woman, and seems extremely comfortable across class lines.
Is Fernand actually committed to Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité?
And if so… is he the good guy now?

PART THREE: ARREST!

Villefort asks whether Dantès read the letter (isn’t it sealed?), and Dantès replies that he can’t read.
STOP. Morrel promoted Dantès to Captain in an earlier scene! Why? How does he read charts? Keep a log? Navigate?
If he’s illiterate, shouldn’t he be swabbing decks instead of running ships?
The letter itself is about English beach patrols on Elba 💂. Not about, oh, I don’t know, mustering troops, organizing support for Napoleon’s return, or specifying a date and landing point.
So how was “Clarion” supposed to know when, where, or from whom to pick this thing up? Edmond spent the day bouncing around Marseilles on personal errands: hanging out with Fernand and Mercédès at The Rocks, taking Mercédès for a nice swim, going to a secret cave afterwards for private smooch time, going home to tell Daddy the good news about his promotion, all with the letter still in his pocket! “Clarion” wants his letter! How would he get it? This is like chasing a UPS truck all over town because the driver is unclear about “package delivery” or “find me and my truck and pick it up personally”!
Villefort offers Dantès a “ride home” in his personal carriage. Dantès, being a blissful idiot, willingly climbs into a barred vehicle because he apparently cannot distinguish between a gentleman’s carriage and a paddy wagon. 🤣
He’s that dumb?
Yes. Yes, he is.
Fernand, meanwhile, is peeved and betrays Dantès because Edmond didn’t share the information about the Elba letter.
Why??? Is Fernand compulsively nosy? Does he require full disclosure of every interaction in Dantès’ life? And more importantly- why does this letter matter to him at all?
Dantès grabs a sword, cue Extraneous Swordfight #2.
He fights badly, tries to run, trips over furniture, attempts to grab Fernand’s sword with his bare hand (shockingly ineffective), and is promptly disarmed. The scene exists solely to justify more clanging metal before the inevitable arrest.

PART FOUR: DUNGEON TIME!

Dantès arrives at the Château d’If. The world-weary warden Dorleac “welcomes” him by explaining a yearly anniversary special: a whipping.
So… how does that work? Does Dorleac keep a calendar? As prisoners die of starvation, torture, exposure, or infection, does he scratch out names and pencil in new ones? Or does he just keep a stack of blank calendars for incoming inmates?
Villefort is informed that Napoleon has escaped Elba, landed in France, and is already marching on Paris.
Gee, wouldn’t it have been helpful if that letter had anything to do with this, rather than trivial intel about English beach patrols?
“Clarion” turns out to be a moron, practically dancing in the streets, announcing that Napoleon returns soon, hurrah! Since he never got his letter, he didn’t assist or do anything useful to help the Emperor, so he is relegated to a Johnny-come-lately celebration.
Back at d’If, Abbé Faria tunnels into Dantès’ cell. Notably, Faria’s clothes are not bloody.
So… is he exempt from the annual whipping? Clerical immunity?
Faria also enjoys the luxury of actual books in his cell. Real ones. At least five.
This neatly undermines one of Faria’s great accomplishments in the novel- creating books from memory and tools from nothing. Here, he just… obtains books. Because he’s special.
We see the prison rations: one ladle of watery soup per day.
How has anyone in this prison not already starved to death?
Napoleon is once again framed as the bad guy- first for lying to Dantès about the letter, and now for imprisoning Faria to extract information about the Spada treasure.
Why all the Napoleon hate? This movie is totally biased, eh? Oh, and speaking of Napoleon, several years had passed, yet this movie never mentions what happened after his escape from Elba and his march on Paris? Do we really have to crack open our history books now to find out?
Since Faria was a former soldier, Dantès asks to be trained in weapon use. Cue a Karate Kid–style training montage, complete with loud stick-clanging for Extraneous Swordfight #3.
Why has no guard heard any of this?
Dantès somehow acquires at least two changes of clothing, all of them pre-ripped and tattered. Where did these come from? Charitable donations? Prison thrift?
The jailers themselves are dressed just as badly-torn, filthy, indistinguishable from the prisoners.
Why? Who are these people? The dregs of society guarding the dregs of society?
Wardrobe note: Dantès adds a necklace of bird skulls, which is bulky, inconvenient, and would make rapid tunnel crawling objectively worse. (Yes, yes, very edgy if he was in a metal band. But he’s not.)
Dantès never addresses Faria as Monsieur l’Abbé, Father, or even Faria. He just calls him “priest,” which sounds oddly disrespectful.
How would Dantès feel if Faria only called him “sailor boy”?
Faria dies and is stitched into a sack. Dantès switches places with the corpse- but then, to ratchet up suspense, he takes an entire bottle of stupid pills.
He leaves the tunnel entrance uncovered and doesn’t even bother disguising Faria’s body in his cell. A guard notices immediately and raises the alarm.
Despite years of training, Dantès remains a dunce who does the exact opposite of covering his tracks and nearly blows the escape. 🤣
A heavy weight is chained to the sack with a padlock.
Why throw a perfectly good lock into the ocean? Prisons famously need more locks, not fewer. And if the man in the sack is “dead,” why waste functioning hardware?
Dantès kills Dorleac by dragging him into the water.
Which raises the question: why does Dorleac exist at all? The answer seems obvious- instant gratification. The real revenge takes time, so Dorleac is inserted as a minor-league villain to give audiences an immediate kill, just in case their attention span falters.

PART FIVE: WITH THE SMUGGLERS / PIRATES / BANDITS

Dantès nearly drowns, but miraculously washes up on a nearby island, where he is immediately captured by Luigi Vampa’s smuggler gang.
Not in Rome. Not even near Rome. They just happen to be operating on an island within casual swimming distance of the Château d’If. Incredible luck. Truly astronomical.
The gang forces Dantès to fight Jacopo “to the death,” because apparently every criminal organization needs a gladiatorial onboarding process.
This brings us to Extraneous Sword/Knife Fight #4, inserted solely to reassure the audience that this is still an action movie.

PART SIX: MARSEILLES

Dantès visits Morrel, clearly hoping- desperately- that Morrel will recognize him.
He does not. This is just a little pathetic.
Also, yet another deviation from the book: Morrel informs Dantès that old Dantès “hanged himself.”
I suppose that’s quicker than dying slowly of starvation, so… efficiency?
In any case, Morrel has now absorbed Caderousse’s exposition role, because why not consolidate characters when the plot is already wobbling?
Morrel explains that he reluctantly took Danglars on as a partner, after which Danglars promptly forced him out and left him with nothing.
He also drops the bomb that Mercédès married Fernand one month after Dantès’ arrest.
One month. Sheesh. What’s the rush? (We’ll find out later 🤣)
Dantès leaves Morrel a small sack of money. Since he hasn’t found the treasure yet, this is apparently just his sailor wages from Vampa.
This is dumb and badly timed. Why not move this scene later, after Dantès finds the treasure, so he can actually give Morrel a sum that would meaningfully change his life?
Jacopo proudly announces that he has bought them a boat.
“Boat” turns out to mean a tiny skiff- basically a rowboat with a token sail.
And with this, they row to Monte Cristo Island, which is 200+ kilometers away.
In a rowboat. 🤣
This would not be adventurous. This would be sheer torture.

PART SEVEN: MONTE CRISTO ISLAND

Dantès and Jacopo arrive on Monte Cristo and appear not at all exhausted from rowing there. Curious.
They then undertake a long, brutal hike over jagged terrain to reach the treasure cavern.
Inside, Dantès discovers at least a dozen submerged treasure chests. 💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰💰
Cut immediately to Jacopo overloading their tiny skiff with several of them. 🤣
Problem #1: That skiff would sink instantly under the weight. They need an actual ship.
Problem #2: How did Dantès even retrieve a dozen sunken chests?
Problem #3: How did two men carry even one of those chests across all that rocky terrain?
The whole thing is so ridiculous I half-expect the chests to be filled with plastic party-favor pirate coins.🤣
Now dripping in riches, Jacopo asks Dantès what he wants to buy. Dantès answers: “Revenge.”
Against Danglars (fair), Villefort (fair), Fernand (also fair)… and Mercédès (not fair).
Excuse me- what? What did she do that deserves retribution?
Perhaps if Dantès had asked Morrel even one follow-up question, he might have learned that Mercédès was told- by Villefort- that Dantès had been executed.
Jacopo, delighted, suggests simply shooting all of Dantès’ enemies and calling it a day.
Dantès refuses. Death is too good for them. They must suffer as he suffered. They must see their world destroyed.
Unfortunately, this version of Dantès is not very bright, so let’s stay tuned and see what kind of deeply non-clever revenge plans he manages to devise.

PART EIGHT: BACK TO PARIS AS THE COUNT

Jacopo arrives at a wealthy man’s estate and offers to buy it on the spot. The owner scoffs- until Jacopo opens his wagon and gold and jewels spill out.
The man immediately hands over the deed and the keys… then rides away in Jacopo’s wagon with no baggage train whatsoever.
He just… leaves? Without packing? No servants? No furniture? No personal belongings?
Fernand Mondego is now established as a serial philanderer, currently sleeping with another man’s wife and scheduled for a duel the next morning.
Cue Extraneous Swordfight #5, which Fernand wins.
So why, exactly, did he want Mercédès so desperately at the beginning of the movie- just to cheat on her later?
Fernand is also hemorrhaging money at gambling tables, behind on loan payments for a ship, and bizarrely hands-on about a cotton shipment.
So first he worked for Morrel as “the shipowner’s representative,” and now he’s his own bookkeeper and logistics manager.
The Mondegos must have been a pretty sorry line of “aristocrats,” since Fernand has always worked for a living.
Jacopo barges into the Count’s bedroom without knocking and addresses him simply as “Zatarra,” because manners remain optional.
He reports that Fernand has a 16 year old son, finally giving us a rough timeline: about 16–17 years have passed since Dantès’ imprisonment.
Strangely, the years have been extremely kind to Fernand and Villefort, who look exactly the same as they did back then.
Albert travels to Rome with friends to celebrate his 16th birthday and is promptly kidnapped. The gang prepares to cut off his finger: ring and all, when a mysterious stranger intervenes.
Cue Extraneous Swordfight #6.
The stranger is, of course, the Count, who rescues Albert and then quietly pays off the “kidnappers,” a.k.a. Luigi Vampa. Nothing suspicious here.
The Count invites Albert to breakfast in Rome. During the meal, he and Jacopo conveniently let slip that the Spada treasure is being shipped to Marseilles and will arrive in three weeks.
Back in Paris, Albert gets an enormous, lavish 16th birthday party. Fernand pulls Villefort aside to discuss “business.”
It turns out Albert immediately blabbed to his father:
“Oh yeah! The Count’s shipping a boatload of Spada gold to Marseilles- three weeks!”💰
Why is this child such an unsecured information leak? Fernand and Villefort promptly plot to steal the shipment and split 50/50.
During the party, Fernand is absent for the toast, so the Count steps in and delivers an “inspirational” speech: “Life is a storm, my young friend…” which has since become an internet meme falsely attributed to Alexandre Dumas.
(Pssst. Dumas never wrote that.)
But in the eternal battle between pop culture and literary masterpieces, pop culture always wins.

PART NINE: THE TRAP

Quick cut to a ship docked with gold chests aboard- presumably three weeks later in Marseilles.
Danglars, freelancing his villainy, unknowingly hires Luigi Vampa and company. He orders two chests loaded onto the Pharaon as “our cut,” saying that “Mondego will never notice.”
Which means Danglars still owns the Pharaon and Morrel’s shipping business. So Dantès’ earlier sack of wages didn’t actually help Morrel reclaim anything and the Count never bothers to revisit Morrel to, you know, fix that.
Several more chests are effortlessly hoisted into a wagon by Vampa’s men, further reinforcing my theory that these are filled with plastic party-favor pirate coins. 💰
The Count, Jacopo, and a large detachment of French soldiers arrive to arrest Danglars. Danglars fights back (not with a sword, so this does not count toward the tally) using whatever’s handy: a cane, a belaying pin, a stick. None of it helps.
The Count loops a rope around Danglars’ neck and pushes him overboard, revealing: “I am Edmond Dantès.”
Because this is PG-13, he orders the soldiers to cut Danglars down before he actually strangles.
The Count next visits Villefort in a sauna, because this is apparently the hottest and most underclad Villefort ever, onscreen. A convenient murder-mystery whodunit flashback appears: Villefort had Fernand murder “Clarion”.
This makes no sense. Why would Villefort and Fernand enter such a mutually incriminating agreement when either could betray the other at any time? Why not simply tip off a Royalist mob and let “Clarion” be killed for free?
The Count tricks Villefort into telling all, at which point Jacopo and soldiers step in to arrest him. 💂
Villefort is shoved into a paddy wagon. In the first genuinely clever moment of the entire movie, he finds a pistol on the seat- “a courtesy for a gentleman.”
He attempts suicide. The gun isn’t loaded.
The Count’s face appears at the window: “You didn’t think I’d make it that easy, did you?”
Bravo. At last! Actual psychological revenge!
Mercédès visits the Count in a darkened room. They argue, resentments boil over, and despite knowing she was told by Villefort that Dantès was executed, he bellows: “Why did you not wait?”
Wait for what, exactly? A séance? A resurrection? Some voodoo?🔮
She shows him a piece of string she’s worn around her finger for some 16 years. It looks brand new.
Oh, come on. I want to try the string-on-finger challenge myself! What would that look like after one month, let alone nearly seventeen years? 🤣
He calms down. They kiss. They sleep together.
Mercédès returns home to find Fernand packing. He’s about to be arrested for piracy, corruption, and murder. He tells her to pack; she refuses. Then she drops the bombshell:
Albert is Edmond Dantès’ son, not Fernand’s. 🍼
This explains the rushed wedding… or does it?
Let’s reconstruct: Mercédès sleeps with Edmond, has no wedding date, receives a letter saying Edmond was executed, realizes she’s pregnant, then immediately accepts Fernand’s proposal and passes the child off as his: “the baby came a little early!”
That’s… not heroic. We dislike Fernand, but conning him into raising another man’s child is still pretty scummy.
Fernand abandons Mercédès and rides to a ruined castle, where he finds a wagon and chests he assumes are his share of the Spada treasure. They’re full of dirt.
The Count steps from the shadows: “I want vengeance for the life you stole from me.”
Fair enough. But out come the swords: Extraneous Swordfight #7.
The Count disarms Fernand with ease: thanks, Abbé Faria! but then Albert rushes in to defend his “father.”
Congratulations, everyone: Extraneous Swordfight #8.
The Count is moments from killing Albert when Mercédès arrives, screaming for them to stop.
Mercédès reveals the truth: the Count and Albert are father and son.
Fernand, lurking in the background, pulls a pistol and shoots Mercédès. Then he rides off, only to have a change of heart and come back for one last duel. 🤣
At last: Extraneous Swordfight #9.
The Count finally kills Fernand. Fin.
Epilogue: Three months later. The Count, Jacopo, Mercédès, and Albert visit the rock housing the Château d’If. The Count declares himself finished with vengeance and resolved to use his fortune for good.
All he wants now is his tidy little family.
They walk off arm in arm.
Yayyyyy.

(THE BIGGEST LETDOWN OF ALL)

Two of Dantès’ enemies: Danglars and Villefort, are still alive, fully mentally intact, and perfectly capable of identifying him as the escaped prisoner Edmond Dantès. 😡

The Count now has a permanent home. Authorities know exactly where to serve a spanking-new arrest warrant. Villefort could cheerfully say:
“I knew Dorleac… Edmond Dantès was severely whipped every year at d’If. Examine the Count of Monte Cristo! Ask him to explain all the scars on his back!”
So much for the Count’s grand vows to make them suffer as he did, to “rip their world away from them.” His “revenge” was… waving the Spada treasure around. And voilà! Danglars, Villefort and Fernand (RIP) flocked to it like vultures. Zzzzzz.
Fernand and Villefort were involved in “Clarion”’s assassination, yet the movie gives us no insight into how the Count discovered this: no detective work, no elaborate ruse, just pure luck? 🤔
They are arrested, yes, but nothing shows them being sentenced to a d’If-style prison. For all we know, they hired lawyers, got off, and resumed their lives. And then they’d be anxious for some payback... somebody needs to be watching his back from now on....

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