‘Ayoung man, falsely imprisoned by his jealous ‘friend,’ escapes and uses a hidden treasure to exact his revenge.” With this skeletal summary, the Internet Movie Database describes a 2002 Hollywood version of The Count of Monte Cristo on its list of “50 Best Revenge Films.” Given that this list is topped by Kill Bill, Quentin Tarantino’s cartoonish send-up of martial arts films, does any adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’s great novel belong on it?
The answer depends on which adaptation we are talking about. The 2002 film depicts a friendship between two young men that goes bad because of jealousy and betrayal. Its main focus is a series of violent skirmishes, building up to a spectacular if painfully drawn-out sword fight in which the count finally skewers his rival. The film belongs on the IMDb list because, like Kill Bill, it uses revenge as a pretext for nonstop mayhem. But this departs so drastically from the book that the producers of the film should have given it a different title.
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