#laurent lafitte

THIS MOVIE ISN'T TALKED ABOUT ENOUGH OMFG

Something that I really love about Monte Cristo 2024 is its villain trio. I love how each of them is different in every aspect from the other.

(first of, the pictures are gonna be shait)

They all have a different hair color, black, blond and brown/gray. But the hair cuts are also never the same. Villefort (Laurent Lafitte) 's hair are a bit messy, still taken care of, but not neatly put together. And Morcerfe (Bastien Bouillon)'s hair are long, straight, and or messy, or just tucked behind his ears. While Danglars (Patrick Mille)'s hair have two very different state between the first and second half ; first he just does not give a fuck about them, they're long, dirty, tied at the back of his head and then everyone can fuck off, but then they're neatly trimed, brushed, with pretty curls, they look like the softest hair ever.

This is also the case with the facial hair : Vi has a zappa beard, a mustache, and then a soul patch beard, Mor has nothing, completely beardless, and Dan has a full on grown beard, it's Santa Claus.

Those hair also change between the first and second half of the movie, but the change is, again, different for the three. Vi's don't change one bit, maybe a few white hair here and there (I think his soul patch beard is gray in the sh), but that's really just it. Mor's completely lose their volume, they seem almost greacy , full of gel, but they're still the same length, and color obv. Now Dan's, it's a complet Disney-Chanel-Makeover, the color is totally different, gray to brown, they're cut short, they're not dirty anymore, they're the silkiest hair ever observed on earth, and damn he takes care of his curls.

Those changes are of course here to show the change of the character himself ; Vi's been through nothing, he was just chilling in his house, ordering executions here and there, you know, nothing crazy. Mor went from a happy young man to a war veteran, sent his best friend to jail for life and betrayed half the planet (and lost an eye). Dan got rich, crazy rich, he was a captain, so a working man, and became one of the, if not the, richest man of France.

Now the color palette of each character!

Let's start with Mor. Mor's main color is red, obvously because he's a soldier, he's in the army, and the uniform is this bright red, but per extetion it's also browns and beiges. "But the jacket in the third pic is some sort of green!" stfu. Let's say it's khaki. Even the eye patch is a warm brown. The white suit is a light beige, the black suit is a dark brown. (at the end of the movie, the duel, he's in blue, no clue why)

I think the red is also linked to all of the people he killed, with his own hands, at war. Red like the blood he shed.

coincidence : Bastien Bouillon's eyes are brown.

Blue and Black are the colors of Vi. He's often in black, but when light hits the cloth, it has a blue sheen to it. That's because his prosecutor uniforme (fifth image) is black. But quite often he's dressed in a very dark blue.

The black could also be linked to all of those executions he ordered. Like Mor, he killed people, but not with his hands, he did it from the comfort of his office. Black like the robes of death.

coincidence : Laurent Lafitte's eyes are a very dark brown, almost black.

and Dan is more in the green and turquoises, which is logical since he spent most of his life on the sea and got rich thanks to it. So green and turquoise like the sea and the money.

coincidence : Patrick Mille's eyes are blue/green.

And finally, the words they use to speak about Napoleon.

Dan doesn't care about politics, he calls Napoleon "The Emperor" even tho he isn't anymore, even tho he's exiled and the most hated man in France at the moment. Mor is a soldier, he fights for France, so Napoleon is "The Usurper" and his followers are "traitors to their country". Vi's the King's Prosecutor, he thinks he's untouchable, above all else, so he calls Napoleon by his name and his followers "Napoleonic agent", he's not afraid of the name, he isn't dramatic, just simple, straight to the point, like an execution.

Also last point ; one's a Count, one's a Prosecutor and one's a Baron.

today i saw the new adaptation of the Count of Monte Cristo and it Slaps. Hard. Pierre Niney slays the boots down in this role. yes the acting is pompous. yes the dialogues are grandiloquent and super cheesy. yes the plot has been reworked in a kinda "casa de papel" "ocean's 11" thriller way. yes some of it is ridiculous. AND it's so much FUN !!!!!!

bonus:

laurent lafitte is extremely good (as always) as was pierfrancesco favino as faria who was just the absolute best.

the scenery is gorgeous (c'est marseille bébé)

anaïs demoustier be my wife challenge

bonus content cute lesbians

"My dad, Mr. Sempé...I loved him. He was difficult but I loved him. He was a salesman [...] and if he made a sale to a grocer [...] he'd celebrate at the local bar. [...] I was so unhappy at home.

Je suis Batman!!

Plot: Edmond Dantes becomes the target of a sinister plot and is arrested on his wedding day for a crime he did not commit. After 14 years in the island prison of Château d'If, he manages a daring escape. Now rich beyond his dreams, he assumes the identity of the Count of Monte-Cristo and exacts his revenge on the three men who betrayed him.

I’ve been really enjoying this recent wave of French blockbuster cinema creating these lavish big-budget adaptions of their nation’s classic literature, with the recent highly enjoyable duology romp of The Three Musketeers (D’Artagnan and Milady respectively) and now taking on The Count of Monte-Cristo. I was a major admirer of Alexander Dumas’ novels when I was a kid, and by admirer I mean my father used to force me to read those books which at the time I hated him for, as I much rather would have spent hours on end on my GameCube, but now am forever grateful that I have the knowledge of storytelling which I gained from reading those pieces of literature. So I’m eagerly hoping that now with these expensive modern movie takes we will also get some of Dumas’ other great works get the contemporary cinematic treatment, such as La Dame de Monsoreau and The Black Tulip (though the latter may be difficult as there is already an older film version starring Alain Delon, and would be hard to recast Delon, let’s not kid ourselves!). As for Monte-Cristo, I’m not even going to sugar-coat it - this is a fantastic modern adaptation of a classic!

The sets are great and really invoke the post-Napoleon era of France; the costumes are gorgeous; the music score is grandiose and epic, really engrossing you in this decade spanning saga of revenge; the classic story is reinterpreted so well with the themes and the emotion, and the acting across the board is superb. Oh and the cinematography is to die for - wonderful long shot landscape sequences, great use of lighting, gorgeous shots of interior palaces - you can tell this film has been given all the money in the world, only unlike Amazon’s Rings of Power TV series that looks expensive but lacks any narrative depth, this film is both great to look at but also has a great story with awesome performance. Look, I really really liked this movie, let me rave about it!! Of course if you’re not French, you have to deal with subtitles, however don’t let that sway you, as this move manages to tell so much using its visuals and powerful music score that at times you don’t even need to read the subtitles to understand the emotion the characters on screen are going through.

Pierre Niney is honestly superb as the titular Count. From how he showcases him in his younger years as the excited young sailor wanting to prove himself to years later being this highly intelligent and driven yet calm presence, as well as taking on the various alter-ego’s of the Count using his different masks (very reminiscent of Fantomas) such as the dastardly Lord Halifax - Niney does such a stellar job here. What I also loved is how this adaptation takes the “superhero origin” approach to Dumas’ classic, with the Count being showcased as this cool dark vigilante like Batman/Bruce Wayne or Zorro, and even his dark menacing suit (which is dapper as f*** by the way!!) emphasising that. All the props to Niney, he adds so many layers and nuance to his performance, that even when he is super reserved as the Count, you can tell in his eyes the disdain and pure hatred he has for the ones that wronged him, but at the same time being able to showcase his guard dropping slightly when he is in the presence of his beloved lost love Mercédès (played gracefully by Anaïs Demoustier).

As for negatives, as even though I absolutely adored this movie, the inner critic within me still can’t help himself. This is a 3-hour long movie, and granted that is a result of the weight of the original book, however you do feel the length of this thing, but at the same time certain parts feel a tad rushed (due to the writers attempting to cram so much story and character development into the 3-hour frame) that certain side-plots and narrative build ups aren’t given their proper space to breath. One does wonder if this would have worked better as a mini-series, however on the other hand they probably would not have had the budget to make this thing look as good as it does. Secondly, certain details/plot-holes frustrated me which I won’t spoil, but one example is when Edmond and Abbé Faria are digging the escape hole from their prison chambers all those years, where the hell did they keep getting all those candles from to light their workspace?? I highly doubt in mid-1800s France prisons had little kiosk shops to offer inmates various groceries and household items. Happy to be corrected here, but honestly seeing those candles reminded me of Deadpool proclaiming “that’s just lazy writing”. And final complaint (before we can get back to raving about how awesome this movie is) is the ageing, or lack of it more. The tale of Monte-Cristo spans from 1815 and ends in 1844, yet the movie makes zero effort in making the actors look older the further down the timeline we go. The Count does look aged but that is due to the mask he wears, so when that’s off he looks like his younger 20-something self again. One of the main baddies Prosecutor de Villefort (played in true dick-fashion by Laurent Lafitte) looks exactly the same at the beginning of the movie and then right to the end. You’re telling me the make-up artists and hairstylists couldn’t give him a single grey hair or a wrinkle?

Again though, that was me with my critical thinking hat on. With that off, I want to reiterate how I truly enjoyed this new version of a classic tale that has been done so many times before, however this one may be one of my favourites. Truly engaging and epic in scale, with a ridiculously cool Pierre Niney in the titular role. He is… the French Batman!

Overall score: 8/10