I recently re-watched both the 1993 version of The Three Musketeers and the 2002 The Count of Monte Cristo, in one double feature. My friend and I had originally intended to watch just the former, but it was so laughably bad that we decided we needed a palate cleanser. (Plus Michael Wincott is in both of them, if in a rather minor role in the later, so there was a secondary connection besides the Dumas adaptation factor. The same friend and I have also recently watched The Man In the Iron Mask, but that, if it appears, will be another review.)
The Count of Monte Cristo is not a great movie in the sense that The Godfather Part II is a great movie. It’s campy and light, and was not designed to win any awards, but it still fulfills its purpose almost perfectly. The Three Musketeers, not a great movie when it came out, has also dated terribly. But even with the decade between the two films, comparing and contrasting may be in order.
First, and probably foremost, is the screenplay. Both, by necessity, radically simplify their source material. There is simply no way to make a two hour feature from books this long without simplifying, and sometimes changing, the original plot. As I haven’t yet read The Three Musketeers, I will judge these movies based only on their own plots, not as adaptations.
Even when you’re writing an adventure film, the rules of basic logic should apply. Albert can be Dantes’ son, because the film makes sure you know he was conceived the night Dantes is arrested. Villefort’s motivation for setting Dantes up is well-explained. The pieces of the Count’s revenge are, if simple, laid out in an enjoyable and understandable way.
With Three Musketeers, my friend and I asked each other many questions. Why does D’Artagnan attack the queen’s guards? Who is the random guy who shows up to arrest Milday De Winter? Are those cannonballs exploding? Why on earth would Richelieu make a move against the crown before an alliance with Buckingham, and was Oliver Platt drunk for the entirety of filming?
If he was, I can hardly blame him. The dialogue is absurd, whether delivered with staunch earnestness by Chris O’Donnell or with theatrical melodrama by Tim Curry.
Watch it without laughing. I dare you.
While Monte Cristo has an unnecessary line or two (I’ve never been fond of “I’m a count, not a saint,” because it doesn’t make sense), it’s mostly straight ahead dialogue. It’s theatrical, but not flowery, often straight to the point – and the screenwriter bothered to make different characters sound different, which is more than Musketeers bothered to do.
Granted, some of this gets mixed up in delivery, which is the realm of actors and directors. Monte Cristo has a solid cast all around: Jim Caviezel is perfect in his combination of hapless naïveté and cold revenge, Guy Pearce’s drunken discontent gets better every time I see the film, Dagmara Dominczyk is competent and very pretty, and Richard Harris is Richard Harris, so there’s that. Like the Errol Flynn pictures of the ’30s, the acting furthers the story; you have heroes to cheer, pretty girls to look at, and villains to boo. It’s not complicated, and it has its issues, but it’s a familiar, reliable plot structure.
I think Kiefer Sutherland’s Athos is supposed to be the person we root for in Musketeers, but the film can’t decide whether it’s him or D’Artagnan. Which is fine, because neither of them quite work as the hero, dramatically. Sutherland seems to be doing a dry run for Jack Bauer, and seems like a refugee from a totally different sort of plot. D’Artagnan is the unattractive Gryffindor: bold, arrogant, and often stupid. I suppose I don’t want the child-king to die, but hell if I care for their sake. As for the other two Musketeers, Platt is affable but clownish, as his Porthos as nothing to do except wench and make cracks about the Empress of America; Charlie Sheen shows up, says his lines, and collects his paycheck. The only one who really acquits himself is Michael Wincott, who is actually rather menacing as Roquefort (especially compared to Curry’s scenery-chewing Richelieu).
Monte Cristo has the slightly better design, even allowing for the differences in technology, and is much more competently lit. The fight choreography is Musketeers is, even to my semi-untrained eye, quite terrible. And Monte Cristo boasts an excellent score for an adventure movie, while every time I hear the power chords for “All for Love,” I can’t help cracking up.
The greater point I took away from watching both films back to back is that just because you’re making a silly pseudo-historical adventure doesn’t mean you should give up on demanding the basic pillars of good cinematic storytelling. You need a story that the audience can follow, characters that they actually care about, and stakes that keep their interest. Musketeers is a mess of nonsensical subplots, and is peopled by one-dimensional cutouts. Monte Cristo is a simple tale of a man who goes through hell and comes back out on the other side (after a great deal of adventure and revenge, but even so). Doing something simple, and doing it well, is hard.
And no matter what the genre, demanding a movie make sense is never too much to ask.
The Exploding Macguffin 