Les trois mousquetaires: D’Artagnan
Director: Martin Bourboulon
Writer: Matthieu Delaporte, Alexandre de La Patellière
Based on: Alexandre Dumas‘s novel
Cast: François Civil, Vincent Cassel, Romain Duris, Pio Marmaï, Eva Green, Louis Garrel, Vicky Krieps, Lyna Khoudri, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Eric Ruf, Marc Barbé, Patrick Mille, Julien Frison
Seen on: 16.4.2023

Plot:
D’Artagnan (François Civil) comes to Paris, dreaming of becoming a Musketeer, the King’s (Louis Garrel) army. But before he has any chance to make his dream come true, he already gets into trouble with three of them – Athos (Vincent Cassel), Aramis (Romain Duris) and Porthos (Pio Marmai). Hothead that he is, he arranges to duel all three on the same day. But instead they end up fighting together when the Cardinal’s (Eric Ruf) men attack. That quickly, they are in the middle of a political plot that concerns all of France.

I did not expect Les trois mousquetaires: D’Artagnan to be a good film but I had high hopes for it to be a wonderfully cheesy schlockfest. Unfortunately the film ruined that hope by taking itself absolutely and completely serious – and it’s just not good enough for that.

There have been many adaptations of the Three Musketeers in varying degrees of quality. Personally (and probably nostalgically), I am partial to the 1993 version and for Man in the Iron Mask, but I wouldn’t say that I am a huge fan of the material. [Still, shockingly, I had entirely forgotten about Milady de Winter (Eva Green in this here film) and her role.] I can’t even remember if I ever read the book, but I have the feeling that I tried to read it once but never got very far.

This is just to give you a bit of context, so you know that when I say that the film really isn’t very good, it’s not because of some minor quibble of mine with some detail that they may have gotten wrong in the adaptation. No, it’s much bigger than that, and most of the problems come from the script where dialogues are absurd, where the Queen’s (Vicky Krieps) biggest confidante (Lyna Khoudri) also runs a laundry as a side hustle and rents out rooms, where Buckingham’s castle towers over the cliffs of Dover. [Special mention also goes to the costume department, though, for whatever time period/parallel universe they thought Milady was from.] And, again, I’m no specialist for the source material, nor am I a history buff, but that makes it especially bad when I start to question the plausibility to those things. They may as well have been realistic, but I just don’t believe you.

And yet, I could have still had a good time with the film (for example, when the “Coast of Styria” made an appearance in Season of the Witch, I just laughed and laughed). But unfortunately, it has no awareness whatsoever about the kind of film it is. Instead it is absolutely serious. I am certain that it is convinced that it is a high-quality political drama of a literary adaptation. Baby, do I have bad news for you.

Unfortunately, without a sense of humor, the film is just way too dry for its own good, and the good cast can do nothing to change that. I would have rather seen the film where Milady’s dresses would have fit right in. But this is not it. And I doubt that I will give the upcoming part 2 of this film a chance.

Summarizing: oh no.