I was fooled into buying this DVD set after I saw the high ratings on IMDb, but after one hour of watching I already regretted my decision.
The film/mini series has a running time of about 6 hours, but after already 45 mins you have already seen (or rather NOT seen, and I kid you not!) : Dantes relation to his wife and family, his background, the conspiracy, his 18 year "suffering" in Château D'if, his relationship with Abbe Faria, his escape, the treasure on Monte Christo and his return to the mainland as "Count".
All that in 45 mins! And it is as rushed and stupid as it sounds. Of course everything of the above happens so fast that you can barely see whats going on nor would anyone without background knowledge understand what is going on.
Who is this Dantes? Who is his wife? Why is he imprisoned again? What was the conspiracy against him? Who are the traitors/bad guys? (you see them for about 10 secs!) Who is this Abbe? What is his relationship to Dantes and why does he tell him about the treasure? And so on. People who have not read the book will have a hard time following the plot here.
You can imagine I was shaking my head constantly and was wondering with what they were intending to fill the other 5 hours. Answer : With not much. Talk, talk, talk and no action. They had 6 hours but wasted the most interesting parts of the story in the first 45 mins. Unbelievable. The "revenge" part in the last 5 hours is (of course) very drawn out and not very interesting.
Depadieu is a fine actor, but miscast as the hero. You just need to see his body after so called "18 years in prison with no food". I wonder what they put into that soup there?
The film/mini series has a running time of about 6 hours, but after already 45 mins you have already seen (or rather NOT seen, and I kid you not!) : Dantes relation to his wife and family, his background, the conspiracy, his 18 year "suffering" in Château D'if, his relationship with Abbe Faria, his escape, the treasure on Monte Christo and his return to the mainland as "Count".
All that in 45 mins! And it is as rushed and stupid as it sounds. Of course everything of the above happens so fast that you can barely see whats going on nor would anyone without background knowledge understand what is going on.
Who is this Dantes? Who is his wife? Why is he imprisoned again? What was the conspiracy against him? Who are the traitors/bad guys? (you see them for about 10 secs!) Who is this Abbe? What is his relationship to Dantes and why does he tell him about the treasure? And so on. People who have not read the book will have a hard time following the plot here.
You can imagine I was shaking my head constantly and was wondering with what they were intending to fill the other 5 hours. Answer : With not much. Talk, talk, talk and no action. They had 6 hours but wasted the most interesting parts of the story in the first 45 mins. Unbelievable. The "revenge" part in the last 5 hours is (of course) very drawn out and not very interesting.
Depadieu is a fine actor, but miscast as the hero. You just need to see his body after so called "18 years in prison with no food". I wonder what they put into that soup there?