moviemunchies

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Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015)

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The assassin you sent after me is part of my found family now

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SUPERMAN (2025) dir. James Gunn

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SUPERMAN (2025) dir. James Gunn

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The Silence of the Lambs (1991) dir. Jonathan Demme

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#me

REX: Voiced by Wallace Shawn

Toy Story (1995) dir. John Lasseter & Toy Story 3 (2010) dir. Lee Unkrich

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Aha! The classic story of The Count of Monte Cristo! The story of a man betrayed who comes back years later for revenge! And also revenge is bad, but only after we go through most of the totally awesome revenge story.

This movie’s over twenty years old, based off of a novel by Dumas, I don’t really care about spoilers.

The Count of Monte Cristo tells the story of Edmond Dantes, the son of a clerk who has a pretty good life: despite his humble origins, he has a beautiful fiance, gets a job as a captain of a ship by proving himself, and is trusted by his boss. Then he’s betrayed and framed for treason, locked away in an island prison for years. There he meets an imprisoned priest, who teaches him skillz, and upon escaping, Dantes decides to take revenge, disguising himself as the mysterious Count of Monte Cristo and ensnaring those who had him locked up.

A change this adaptation (and I think plenty of other ones?) makes is that there’s a lot more sword fighting. Which makes sense, but I do wonder if maybe people don’t realize that the book is as sword fight-heavy? I remember that the comic book Fables has Dantes as a fencing teacher, which is an odd choice, and it’s possible that this movie is to blame. Having more sword fights is cool, though, so that’s not a complaint. Look, if you can inject more sword fights into a movie, I’m going to be the last person to complain.

This movie is oddly religious? That isn’t a complaint, exactly, as a religious person. The idea of God and mercy having a role in Dantes’s life is an interesting take, especially as it’s part of his arc to realize that revenge is bad. Then again, it feels a little tacked-on; Dantes is not especially religious before he loses his faith during his time in Chateau d’If, and it isn’t as if he has a religious experience towards the end. It’s just that he sort of realizes that revenge is bad and the old priest was right. 

Also, in many ways, I think the movie tries to make it more… nice. Or clean, rather. Part of that is just adaptation–the absolutely massive book had to be streamlined for a film adaptation. So yes, there’s a less complex Plot, and characters are reworked into ways that make the audience feel stronger. Mondego is Dantes’s best friend who betrays him, Mercedes really was Dantes’s True Love all along, and so forth. I think these changes are okay for a Hollywood movie, I do mourn the complexity that’s lost, though.

Edmond Dantes is played by Jim Caviezel in this movie. For reasons unclear to me, the movie dumbs him down significantly in the beginning. I understand that because he’s naive and completely caught unawares by the betrayal that starts the Plot, we wanted to have that side of him come across, someone who never suspects anyone. But why on Earth would we have it that he can’t read? He’s the son of a clerk, as my sister pointed out; surely that would come up? The only possible explanation I can think of is so that he can’t read Napoleon’s letter, but you could also have it so that he’s so trusting he never thought to read it when he had the opportunity.

That being said, it is very satisfying to watch him come into his own as the Count. It’s not a perfect revenge fantasy, but it is pretty darn cool. The movie does a great job with depicting opulence, what with his massive house, all the treasure, and arriving on a freaking balloon that’s so awesome.

So Fernand is the Big Bad in a way, the main betrayer. Guy Pierce is great at being a douchebag, as he does here. You do have to wonder why Dantes was ever friends with this guy; he’s always envious, and tries (badly) to sleep with Mercedes. We need something a bit more to sell them as friends, I think, other than dialogue talking about backstory. I do like what they do with him overall though: he becomes a rich man with a title, only to completely waste his wealth on gambling and women. Because he doesn’t actually have anything he wants to do with his possessions, he just likes having money. It’s the perfect way to write an envious character, someone who wants what other people have, but don’t have a plan of something clever to do if he or she actually gets it.

Mercedes is a bit of an odd one here, because the movie clearly wants her to be a straightforward love interest for Edmond. It makes sense, as the love interest he ends up with in the book is a bit hard to make modern audiences accept, I think. The result is a bit too neat, from making it so that she only married Fernand because she was pregnant (a detail not in the book), and writing her as a woman whose been pining after her lost love for over a dozen years and is all too happy to get back together with him when he finally returns. It’s not bad writing, it just makes the story much more of a conventional romance, and takes away any flaws she might have as a character. Which is Hollywood for you, I guess.

Albert is–HENRY CAVILL?! What are you doing here? He looks so young?? What the fudge… it’s just weird seeing Henry Cavill playing someone who isn’t a badass, after his turns as Superman, Geralt, and Napoleon Solo. He’s also fairly clueless, though considering his parentage it’s not really too much of a surprise. Albert gets through the revelations in the finale alarmingly quickly, though at that point I understand the story needs to wrap up. Still, I would have liked to have seen him wrestle with his parentage, the lies around his life and how much of a villain Fernand Mondego is. We’re told he looks up to Fernand, presumably loves his mother, and yet the most we get out of him is shock, really, when Mercedes drops the bomb that Dantes is his father. Okay. And? How do you feel about him and Fernand trying to kill each other now?

This sort of feeds back into the problem with making the revenge Plot much neater. In the book, the moral is that revenge is bad, which is hard to take seriously because Dantes pulls it off so well. At the same time, you do see that people who didn’t do anything wrong are being caught up in Dantes’s vengeance because they’re related to the people Dantes targets. The novel shows that revenge is bad, and shows us the consequences it has on innocent people that Dantes has trouble caring about as he’s so focused on his victims. The movie could have had Albert’s relationship with the Count as much more complex, as he realizes that Dantes only used him, and instead it skips past any complications that might arise. Maybe it has to for the movie to be coherent, I don’t know.

There is something to be said about how the movie depicts the traps Dantes sets, though. The villains are all douchebags, and they get caught because they’re doing douchey things to make themselves rich or screw over someone else. If they hadn’t been terrible people, they wouldn’t have gotten trapped by Dantes. Again, that makes it clean, though it also makes it much easier for the audience to root for Edmond.

Jacopo is a fun character, and a surprisingly insightful one. He’s Dantes’s right hand man, and tries to act a little as his conscience. Not always a very moral conscience, considering he suggests a much simpler revenge. But he points out, quite reasonably, that Edmond doesn’t have to do all of this, and pleads with him to consider just walking away. He’s got a good arc, and he’s entertaining, which is what you want in a supporting character.

Abbe Faria (who was a real guy, by the way!) is played by Richard Harris, and he is a delight here. A lovable and clever old fellow that helps Edmond make it through his time in prison, while also working to escape it. He’s good. I’ve got no complaints here. Richard Harris is awesome.

It’s a good movie, and it’s a fun, enjoyable movie; I don’t think it’s that great of an adaptation because of how simplified everything is. But again, I don’t know how to do an accurate depiction of the book as a film without it being horribly long. There is a longer French production that came out last year, though I don’t know how that one does. For Hollywood, though, this may be what we get. If it is, it’s not a bad film at all: it’s got sword fights, good dialogue, cool sets, and a fun revenge story.

You should absolutely read the book at some point, though.

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Psych 2x03

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A Goofy Movie (1995) dir. Kevin Lima

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SPIDER-MAN (2002)

dir. Sam Raimi

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KEANU REEVES as john constantine CONSTANTINE francise lawrence, 2005

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FRANK CASTLE + MATT MURDOCK

Daredevil: Born Again (2025) 01x04 "Sic Semper Systema"

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"I want to bury him. Properly, without magic." Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010)

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On St. Patrick’s Day, my library had an event about illuminated books, and a screening of the movie Secret of Kells. And it’s a fantastic little film! Cartoon Saloon rocks my socks!

Brendan is a young monk and the nephew of the Abbot of Kells, a busy monastery in the midst of building a large stone wall around itself to ward off the Northmen who have been raiding Christian settlements. When Brother Aiden of Iona, a survivor of a raid, arrives at Kells to finish a manuscript, Brendan wants to help, and Aiden sees his talent. His strict uncle, however, doesn’t want him to wander out of the walls to seek ink ingredients. Brendan does it anyway, and comes across Aisling, one of the Daione Sidhe, and the two strike up a friendship.

So something a bit odd of this movie is that it’s a fantasy take on the creation of the Book of Kells, but it doesn’t actually tell us what the Book of Kells is. There’s a lot of talk about this being the book that “turns darkness into light” and brings hope to the people in the hard times of the Northmen raids. Okay, fine; well, what is it, then? For the record, the Book of Kells is a real artifact, an illuminated manuscript of the Four Gospels in Latin. So you do have this weird thing where the characters are all talking about a book saving the world, vague references to holiness, without any overt explanations or references to what the thing is. You’d think it was because of the amazing art that the book is saving the world. Though, admittedly, that art’s pretty amazing when we do see it.

Actually, the art style of this film was modeled after medieval manuscripts. The makers of this film were inspired by Mulan, actually, rationalizing that if Disney can make a movie that had an art style taking after traditional Chinese art, there’s no reason someone couldn’t do that with Irish culture. Which is a fantastic idea, and I wish more studios would try to make movies based off of weird, culturally distinct art styles.

[There is some minor controversy about character design–there are some who feel that the black monk in Kells has a design that’s reminiscent of a caricature. I mean, it’s based off of medieval manuscript marginalia, but I get why some found the look unfortunate. The director actually apologized for this, for the record.]

The animation throughout the film is masterful, as you’d expect from an art style derived from medieval manuscripts. Sometimes, it’s just surreal, really, to see those things brought to life on screen. Swirls, spirals, patterns, bright colors, squarish creatures–it’s all here! I love it, it’s fantastic.

And of course, there are a ton of references to Irish culture–monastic culture, folklore, and literature. Like, right off the bat: Brother Aiden has a white cat named ‘Pangur Ban’. That’s a thing from literature! One of the oldest written samples of the Irish language is a poem that a monk wrote about his white cat, Pangur Ban. Crom Cruach is a figure from literature about Saint Patrick. The manuscript maker from the backstory, Columkille, is Saint Columba from Irish and Scottish history. It’s like the filmmakers wanted to include every remotely relevant bit of Irish culture into this story, and it comes together surprisingly well.

Check out this movie. It’s pretty great. It looks great, and it’s incredible to see people animating in a style that’s both unique and interesting. I would have preferred if they actually told you what the Book of Kells is, but as it is the film’s still a strong, memorable story that I love to rewatch when I can.

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The sun's in my heart and I'm ready for love!

Singin' in the Rain (1952) dir. Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly

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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), dir. Ryan Coogler

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