The Count of Monte Cristo/DVD Buena Vista Home Video 2002 The Count of Monte Cristo/Soundtrack RCA, 2002   Reviewed by Tony Buchsbaum	If there was ever a swashbuckling author, it was Alexandre Dumas. Author of The Three Musketeers, Dumas was a political activist who used his knowledge to build everlasting characters and, conversely, his fame as a writer as a ticket to the front line of politics. Though not his most famous (that would be Musketeers), perhaps Dumas' best-loved story is The Count of Monte Cristo, which has been filmed for the umpteenth time and was recently released on DVD. Kevin Reynolds, director of the long-submerged Kevin Costner non-epic Waterworld, here earns his chops as a director who knows how to weave a tight story and nail the thrills. This Monte Cristo is a terrific film that brings the Dumas tale to amazing, big-screen life. The story finds Edmund Dantes (played by James Caviezel) and Fernand Mondego (Guy Pearce) best friends on a daring, albeit suicidal, mission to save their ship captain by dropping in on Napoleon exiled on Elba. Seeing an opportunity, Napoleon entrusts Dantes with a secret letter, to be delivered upon their return to Marseilles. In quick order, Dantes is betrayed by Mondego, jailed, and all but forgotten. For close to a decade, he toils in solitary, existing on one dish of slop a day. One day, Abbe Faria (Richard Harris) literally emerges from the stone floor. He's spent years digging an escape tunnel for himself -- in the wrong direction. With Dantes' help, the Abbe starts digging the other way. Years later, just as they near the end, he dies tragically, but not before giving Dantes a hidden treasure map. With his freedom and all that loot at stake, Dantes finds an ingenious way to escape, made possible by his friend's death. Not surprisingly, Dantes finds the treasure (trunks and trunks of golden goodies) and uses it to get revenge on those who ruined his life, costing him his livelihood, his fiancée and his future. All in all, it's a pretty straightforward plot, but Reynolds and screenwriter Jay Wolpert twist the classic in contemporary ways that bring new life to the old, reliable story. That they do this without losing the tragic, lost-then-found-love throughline is to their credit. The result is the best telling of Monte Cristo I've ever seen. Caviezel is perfect as Dantes. I first saw him in Frequency a few years back (Dennis Quaid, father-and-son time-travel yarn, remember?), and I thought he was strong there. Here, he delivers a performance that's both over-the-top and restrained, which hardly seems possible, but works nonetheless. I completely bought into him, both as hero, as prisoner, then as mysterious landowner/hero. The plot makes these character shifts possible; Caviezel makes them believable. Pearce, on the other hand, is a disappointment. Whereas Caviezel vanished inside Dantes, Pearce, who starred in L.A. Confidential and Memento, finds it difficult to get a handle on who Mondego really is. Is he a pitiful, pouty rich-boy-gone-bad? An evil villain? A misunderstood schlub? It was almost painful to watch Pearce searching for his character. The beautiful Dagmara Dominczyk plays the woman who comes between them, first as Dantes' young fiancée and then as Mondego's jaded wife. Like Caviezel, she seems to float through the movie effortlessly, not only providing its emotional center but also its most stunning accessory. Richard Harris delivers yet another winning performance as Abbe Faria. His screen time is short, but his legacy drives the film, giving Dantes not just the map, but the training and street smarts to thwart his nemesis. Harris is both father and father-figure. The movie looks wonderful. Reynolds uses supreme locations, and the screen is filled with details to absorb. Truly, there's nothing about the look and feel of this movie that feels false. It all works. The DVD is outfitted with a director's commentary, as well as four fascinating featurettes about Dumas, the screenwriter's job of adaptation, the world of Napoleon, and the film's astounding swordfighting sequences. Contemporary adaptations of classics don't always work. For every tradition-shattering William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet, there's a vapid Cruel Intentions (a spoiled-high-school-student version of Les Liaison Dangereuses). For a change, although the Dumas story has seen numerous screen versions, this Count of Monte Cristo is vibrant, vital and smart. It's a more-than-worthwhile addition to your growing DVD collection. | October 2002   Tony Buchsbaum is the author of Total Eclipse. At night he works on another novel and a screenplay. Days, he writes advertising copy in Lawrenceville, NJ, where he lives with his wife and sons.	All in all, it's a pretty straightforward plot, but Reynolds and screenwriter Jay Wolpert twist the classic in contemporary ways that bring new life to the old, reliable story.