2024 Count of Monte Cristo Remake Review

A near-perfect Monte Cristo adaptation. Welcome to my Count of Monte Cristo Remake Review

Overall: 9 out of 10. I loved it!

The 2024 Count of Monte Cristo remake is the best film I've watched so far in 2026, full stop. The acting is superb, the visuals are stunning, and the writing feels sharp, deliberate, and emotionally confident.

Acting That Transcends Language

Now, I can't speak French, so can I swear to the quality of the dialogue as written? Not completely. But the captions were excellent, and more importantly, the performances transcended language. Much like watching anime in Japanese, when a film is in a non-native language I stop fixating on words and start reading faces, posture, pacing, breath. Emotion becomes the primary text. This film knows that. Every glance, every pause, every restrained outburst lands cleanly. The emotional clarity is outstanding.

This is a rare case where I'll say it plainly: I think this movie is better than the book.

**Spoilers beyond this point.**

A More Mature Take on Love and Revenge

In Dumas' novel, Dantès ending up with Haydée always felt off to me. Is it plausible? Yes. Is it earned? Barely. It suggests a diminished kind of love—one forged too deeply in vengeance, with Haydée functioning more as proof of Dantès' survival than as a fully autonomous person.

Why This Film Is Better Than the Book

Haydée ends up with someone who loves her as a person, not a symbol or a chess piece. Dantès, still driven by love, proves it by doing the harder thing—he steps away. What other underlying emotion could've driven him so far if not love? And yet, love here is measured, restrained, and moral. That choice is richer. Stronger. More mature. It reframes the entire story as one about the limits of revenge rather than its triumph.

That thematic correction alone elevates the film in my opinion.

Minor Flaws That Keep It From Perfection

My only real gripe—and the reason this isn't a 10 out of 10—is admittedly picky, but I can't ignore it.

Soooooo, I'm a European martial artist trained in these weapons.

The final duel between Dantès and Fernand uses smallswords. Smallswords are thrust-centric weapons, relatively edgeless, descended from the rapier and used for dueling and gentlemanly self-defense. They're not cutting weapons. At first, I assumed the slashing meant they were spadroons, the beefed-up military cousin. But when the blade breaks against the statue and we get the close-up, the thinness makes it unmistakable—these are smallswords.

And smallswords aren't slashed like sabers, broadswords, or even spadroons. Especially not by a career military man like Fernand. That final fight is choreographed beautifully but mechanically wrong, and for those of us who know these weapons, it breaks immersion.

Still, that flaw doesn't outweigh what the film achieves.

Final Count of Monte Cristo Remake Review Thoughts

This is a confident, emotionally intelligent adaptation that understands the soul of The Count of Monte Cristo better than the book itself does at the end. It respects revenge, interrogates it, and ultimately refuses to romanticize its cost.

I'd recommend it without hesitation.

***

And if you like swashbuckling stories and adventure, check out my fantasy book: The Silver Blade and the Magpie's Blood

a classic fantasy adventure in which a father must protect his family from the sins of his blood and find redemption in the journey.