If I had to pick my most favorite books of all time, The Count of Monte Cristo would be up near the top. Granted, Alexandre Dumas was equivelent to a rennaisance-era Grisham. Good writing, great story but not a lot of depth, compared to the authors that would share the top of my list – Hermann Hesse, Ayn Rand, James Joyce. But the emotional impact of the book when I first read it in my teens was just as powerful.
So I was pleasantly surprised to see that a proper retelling of the story was done in the new movie V for Vendetta. The parallels are fairly obvious to someone who has read the book, but for those that haven’t, the black and white version of the movie gets a plug. However, it is a new retelling of the story; the same emotions, the same rage and agony are perfectly presented, and yet in an entirely new context. The fact that I found the movie disturbingly relevant to events happening today made this all the more compelling. I give this movie a big thumbs up.