Finally! A Count of Monte Cristo for the digital native generation!
Oh, its great. The actors ensemble cant act, the dialog is written in simple "your first english writing assignment" sentences, the music is horrendous, the DP doenst know any shots other than "close up thats too close" and "medium shot thats too close"; and the colorist thought "Hobbiton in the Shire" colors would be just right for 19th century france and italy.
Be gripped by tremendous dialogue like "He got a secret letter, end of sentence. We all have a common cause. End of sentence." Or who could forget the marriage vows from Mercedes to Dantes: "Oh! I've never been to paris, end of sentence!
The acting is - well, If you cast an entire cohort, of your capitals biggest acting school, you ought to get better talent than this. At least, once you put the older acting coaches in as the elderly people. The captain of Dantes ship is Bob from the lighting crew. The tavern owner is in his mid twenties, with a heart of gold, and black - of course. Mercedes acts wonderfully in her best Disney princess impersonation with so much three weather taft hair product in her perfectly curled wedding coif, that it becomes the main focus of the shot, every time shes in a scene.
The DP arranges wonderful compositions (reminder, he only does closeups and medium shots!), like shot/countershot on a table, where the countershot almost crosses the visual line and is set up in a 75-80 degree angle, and then of course the close ups are too far pulled in so the effect is a mixture off confusion, and nausia - as the main effect, of what was conceptualised as a four people sit at a table and drink wine scene. But, and this was essential for the DP, he gets that one wine glass in the forefront into an out of focus blur, so all is good, because great arty result for the director.
Same scene - dinner table, four people drinking wine, in a half lit room has TWO buttlers standing by in the out of focus background, because I dont know - one actor schools actress boyfriend wasnt in the tv series yet presumably. I mean - those people might not yet be that rich, but you better have two wine butlers ready, when you are conspiring at a dinner, in a half lit room, at an intimate table of four - surely...
The wedding scene shot is, someones best impression of the Lord of the Rings elven council, down to the ivy twines in the background and the costume departments best guess of what people would wear in the mediterraneans. Velvet it is.
The shot setup consists of closeup, medium shot walking, medium shot down a garden lane (very artsy, but where exactly are we), (never mind,) medium shot walking, medium shot down the same garden lane for a split second (oh they arrived where you set up your camera, great for you!), close up on the two characters, ...
The mariage dance musik is twiddly, twiddly, twaddly and sister diddley. None of the dancers can dance (not even the main characters) but who cares at that point. Great that everything still looks like Rivendell from Lord of the Rings though, what a magic moment!
When Dantes finally comes home for the first time, we never see the city, but only three medium shots and five closeups of people looking angry, whispering.
The tavern is established by shooting a dark ark, lit with some torches. That then is cut into the next scene twice for some reason though.
Oh, look, there are soldiers walking through an alley, medium shot, camera too close...
But with that winning formula. Short sentences. Female love interest looks like princess. Lovely elven wedding. And make it look like Lord of the Rings --
how can any digital native not love it! Eight out of ten.
No wait - 4 out of 10 - because - I'm only into the first episode and surely there have to be some redeeming qualities, I've yet to come across...
Background: I watched four different productions of the Count of Monte Cristo in the past two months (2024 film (excellent, deviates from the source material), Depardieu series, very good, almost makes you forget that Depardieu is in it, Richard Chamberlain movie (decent, with a great although different rendition of the Count), and the 1979 series (not bad)), and just let out a short unidentifiable noise in despair after noticing what todays audience regards a 7.8/10 production, at the time of the writing of this review.
