Kevin Reynolds has had quite possibly the worst luck of any talented American director—particularly a director whose talents are so well suited to commercial moviemaking. Given better judgment, or perhaps better advice . . . or something, Reynolds could, at this point in his life, be enjoying a career of, say, John McTiernan-esque proportions. Like McTiernan (Die Hard, The Thomas Crown Affair), Reynolds is a deft and vivid visual storyteller whose flair for action pyrotechnics never devolves into incoherence (à la Michael Bay or Renny Harlin). Unlike McTiernan, however, Reynolds has a history of making movies with Kevin Costner. And there is the rub. It was Reynolds who was behind the camera for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves; though its battle scenes put a nice new gloss on old-school derring-do, Costner's flat performance and a moderately ridiculous script kept spoiling the fun. And then there was Waterworld, the source of a giant rift between onetime pals Costner and Reynolds, and why the hell wouldn't it be?

But let's not dwell on past misfortunes. Reynolds's latest picture, The Count of Monte Cristo, is happily Costner-free, and it's also a pip: a nonstodgy period piece that does honor to its source material while zipping along at a spanking (but not exhausting) pace, crammed with often breathtakingly beautiful visuals, enriched by nicely detailed characterizations and lively performances. The story of Edmond Dantes (Jim Caviezel) was one that every schoolboy used to know: a noble sort-of-savage (well, at the very least, uneducated) who's set up as a fall guy by a moneyed rotter and left more or less for dead on a remote prison isle, where he meets a fellow condemnee who not only teaches him everything a warrior-philosopher needs to know but also hips him to the location of a fabulous treasure. Upon escaping from his prison, Dantes retrieves the loot and, as modern parlance would have it, reinvents himself as the Count of Monte Cristo—sophisticate, swordsman, wheeler-dealer extraordinaire—the better to wreak vengeance on those who unjustly imprisoned him. One twist that screenwriter Jay Wolpert has added to this juicy scenario is to make Mondego (Guy Pearce), Dantes's denouncer, an old friend of his. This added dimension of betrayal actually does improve the story and adds a level of complexity to Pearce's villain—but one suspects that Pearce would have had enormous fun with the character even without the twist. As Dantes, Caviezel is extraordinary, taking Dantes from callow youth to cold-blooded revenger most seamlessly. Character-actor king Luis Guzman and stalwartly phlegmatic Richard Harris add to the delight; Harris is particularly deft in the surprisingly physical role of Dantes's tutor, the sort of archetypal figure that inspired the likes of Obi-Wan and Yoda. Monte Cristo's period trappings might give kids the impression that it takes place in a galaxy as far away as the one in Star Wars; Reynolds and company make it a delightful place to visit.