Born two hundred years ago, Alexandre Dumas must wonder why Hollywood has distorted his works of late to create hack jobs designed for eight-year olds. How else to explain The Man in the Iron Mask and the most recent abominable adaptation of The Three Musketeers? Now The Count of Monte Cristo gets a Disneyfied treatment that would have played better had they digitized the actors a lá Waking Life, or clued ALL the actors into the fact that they were going for humor and over-the-top melodrama. Without Dumas receiving any royalties, are there no descendants suing screenwriter Jay Wolpert and the Disney people backing up the production?

The biggest problem comes with the mixed messages—some actors play their roles straight and serious and others play for comedy and caricature. The actors simply do not get on the same page! But that lies squarely in the hand of director Kevin Reynolds, who has a checkered past with Waterworld signaling potential box office and artistic doom, and Robin Hood: The Prince of Thieves containing a few good swashbuckling moments and humor. Thankfully, he didn't cast Kevin Costner in the latest debacle. That would have been cruel revenge!

Betrayal and revenge lie at the heart of The Count of Monte Cristo. Supposed best friends Edmund Dantes (John Caviezel) and Fernand Mondego (Guy Pearce) return to Marseille after a narrow escape from Elba, the island of Napoleon's exile. From the beginning savvy viewers suspect that the friendship is shaky—the clean-shaven Dantes smiles innocently while stubble faced Mondego leers, and later lusts after Dantes' fiancée Mercedes (Dagmara Dominczyk). Inevitably, the betrayal occurs and the good guy is suddenly and unjustly exiled to the remote prison island of Chateau d'If.

“Embarrassments” to the French government are kept in solitary confinement—the only human contact being daily feedings and sewage collection, and yearly whippings administered oh so gleefully by the warden, in tune with the melodramatic scenario (he only lacks the curly mustache). Character actor Michael Wincott gets some of the film's best lines, like his counter offer to Edmund: "Let's make a bargain, shall we? You ask God for help, and I'll stop beating you the moment He shows up!"

For four years Edmund does little more than count the 5,119 stones in his cell, eat the meager slop, and deepen the wall carving "God will give me justice." But fellow prisoner Faria (Richard Harris) literally makes a breakthrough. Edmund now has more interesting and beneficial activities to pass the time. Old Faria (a priest) becomes his “Yoda” and teaches him to read (books on economics and Machiavelli's The Prince), to think, to develop hand strength, and to fence (light sabers are in a galaxy far away). Most of all, they relentlessly tunnel through towards freedom, figuring that it'll take eight years.

Of course, the eventual predictable escape leaves Edmund with thoughts of revenge, but how is he to manage this? How will he find the means to get to his end (yes, there IS a direct Machiavellian reference inserted into the latter part of the film)? Faria provides the means to wealth, so Edmund jumps into Parisian aristocracy and hosts a lavish party to reacquaint himself with Mercedes and his nemesis Mondego, who had quickly married after his imprisonment.

Nice humorous touches come from Edmund's pirate sidekick Jacapo, played by the always engaging Luis Guzman (Traffic). Jacapo suggests forgetting about the elaborate revenge scheme and get on with the swashbuckling, kill the bad guys, and move on with his life.

In some ways that would thankfully save thirty minutes of time for the predictable Disney ending, but would deprive audiences from sufficient chuckling at Edmund's cleverness, booing Pearce's extreme evilness, and cheering on the good guys. Borrowing a conceit that works well in Braveheart (remember Mel and the thistle), Mercedes pulls a sentimental moment from her hands designed to bring tears.

But we're not talking literature with The Count of Monte Cristo. Arthouses would laugh it off the screen and refuse to sell tickets—this film plays to the mainstream, and if the audience I sat with is any indicator, the film succeeds with its manipulative tricks. The audience ooo';s and ahhhhh's when the director wants it to, and they could easily be coached into proper booing and hissing.

Reynolds has recovered from his Waterworld debacle to make a sufficiently entertaining film; unfortunately, it could have been stronger with better casting and direction. I'm not convinced that Caviezel is the correct choice for the lead, despite playing pure and innocent characters in The Thin Red Line and Frequency—his easy going manner doesn't carry the film like a swashbuckling Errol Flynn, so the melodrama doesn't come off when he's on screen. Although Caviezel's character achieves a remarkable escape and plots a complicated 19th century revenge worthy of Mission Impossible, he has his feet planted too firmly on the ground.

Others engage in fantasy and cartoon-like character development. Wincott brings comic loathing for his character, whereas Guzman just makes the audience laugh with his presence. Pearce is the guy who seems to be overplaying his villainy, but only because he's deliberately personifying melodramatic evil as fantasy. It makes him look like he's out of step with everyone else (outside of the two comic supporting characters)—he leers jealously, sneers at his foes, admits that he's a murdering louse, and whirls around charging with saber. Pearce plays a caricature of evil, like he's a villain from a campy Batman show while Caviezel stoically delivers his heroic revenge seeking role more like Hamlet (without the denouement).

Reynolds delivers the Disneyfied Dumas material acceptably, but it could have been so much more. It's the job of the director to decide whether he's dealing with drama or comedy, and Reynolds never takes control of the situation. With greater consistency in tone from the cast, even musty old Dumas fans and cynical film critics would have been satisfied.