The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan

A fan of historical big movies should not hesitate to go to the cinema. A French adaptation of the famous classic by Alexandre Dumas has arrived and I would say it is also the best to date. The huge budget is evident, the beautiful locations and settings are a delight and the best French stars are available: Vincent Cassel, Eva Green and Francois Civil. There are slight changes to the original story, so it's not an exact copy, but they are minor deviations that I welcome warmly. The new adaptation is without a doubt grittier, more action-packed, dirtier and darker. I was most impressed by the action shot in one take, which fits perfectly and is intense enough. I can't recall better filmed sword fights from other films. The finale in particular can lean on the attractive cathedral setting and the decent chaos that erupts there is delicious. All the actors do a good job and even the non-action passages where political intrigue builds up are entertaining. Certainly the film is also suitably suspenseful and atmospheric and visually impressive. I look forward to the second part. 7.5/10. (04/11/2023)

The concept of an old-school adventure film, the kind that is no longer in vogue today. This is Dumas to the core. Admittedly, in terms of style, it's dirtier and grittier than usual, with a few (not bad at all) subplots of its own, but otherwise it's exactly what you'd want from a modern adaptation of a classic. The production design, the locations, the costumes, the choreography of the single take action, the pacing, the characters, everything is so classic Three Musketeers that is almost surprising. I expected (or rather feared) a greater mincing of the source material in a (post)modern package. As soon as I left the cinema I immediately looked to see when the second part would come, and sadly, it isn’t until the end of the year. (04/15/2023)

This successful adaptation of Dumas's classic slightly updates the famous story and relies on great action scenes, beautiful sets and a charismatic cast. It completely omits humour and plays on a serious note, and it mostly works very well. Unfortunately, Martin Bourboulon doesn't quite manage to sell the more intimate scenes and dialogue, and towards the end it feels like he's bitten off too big a bite; the finale, however impressive, is a bit too much. But despite these problems, this is a highly above-average adventure flick straddling the line between old-school and modern filmmaking. (04/10/2023)

Gone are the saturated colors and boisterous choreography of Lester’s classic version. Bourboulon has his protagonists rooting around in the dirt and mud, D'Artagnan literally in the first scene. The humor is also gone, but that doesn’t mean that the trio, which is actually a quartet, lacks distinctive wit and charm. The cast is good, the sets are properly shabby, the costumes are dirty and the plot is rife with intrigues. The deviations from Dumas are defensible and it’s apparent that this new adaptation wants to bring more behind-the-scenes scheming into play and somewhat sideline the love motifs, which is fine. It’s a shame that some of the plot shortcuts have slightly confused logic, but after a few doubts about whether all that Protestant fun below Paris is only a needless digression, the feeling that everything can be made into an excellent spectacle in the sequel ultimately wins out. In the end, I'm bothered only by minor issues with the film, mainly the fact that Richelieu is an expressionless character. But everything else works. The one-shot action replaced the playful choreography with physicality and the musketeers soon settle into it.  A very respectable contribution to the Dumas canon! (04/18/2023)

Finally, a properly filmed legend. Although not so heavyweight in terms of the actors' names, it can't compare with the 90s version, but actually in everything else it does and in many parameters it even surpasses it. This new remake is much less of a likeable pulp flick and much more of a gritty, dark film of intrigue with excellent sets and fantastically shot action, but there's very little of that so far and that's a shame. Only a fraction of films in French production have this kind of bold handheld camerawork and editing. It's expected that the sequel will be suitably epic and live up to expectations, as many fans are duly hyped after the first installment, and quite rightly so. PS: Captain Rochefort is missing! (10/15/2023)