A glorious adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas classic “Count of Monte Crisco”: hits Bay Area movie screens this week. And should you want to stay home after ringing in 2025, turn to Netflix for the gobble-it-all-down thriller series “Missing You.” Oh, and Wallace & Gromit are back! Here’s our roundup.
Alexandre Dumas’ epic classic remains one of literature’s finest revenge tales and is executed so well that it has led to numerous film versions — some good, some not. The finest is this one, which stays more aligned with the author’s 19th-century doorstop of a novel. Directors and screenwriters Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patellière are Dumas devotees (they wrote 2023’s tremendous “The Three Musketeers — Part I: D’Artagnan”) and bring to invigorating life the romance, the duplicity, the majesty, the costumes, the sets and the spectacle that the rousing story demands.
Pierre Niney seems as if he’s stepped out of time to portray the vengeance-seeking Edmond Dantès (aka The Count), a good man standing unjustly accused of being a traitor who gets thrown for years into the prison Chateau d’if until he escapes. He pinpoints hidden treasure that another prisoner tells him about and then insinuates himself into the lives of those who wronged him. His elaborate retaliation plan targets those who rudely interrupted his wedding to his beloved, Mercedes (Anaïs Demoustier).
To do so, he enlists the charms of an enchanting Haydée (Anamaria Va.
