En garde! Evergreen Eva is a perfectly scheming Milady
The Three Musketeers: Milady Cert: 12A
1hr 55mins
The Family Plan
Cert: 12 1hr 58mins
What Happens Later
Cert: 15A 1hr 43mins
Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child Of Fire
Cert: 15 2hrs 13mins Netflix from Friday
BPLOT DOES GET COMPLICATED BUT THIS IS ONE OF THE GREAT JOYS OF THE YEAR
ack in April, The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan headed to our cinemas with barely a fanfare of advance publicity and, ahead of its first screening, was already being greeted with an almost Gallic shrug of indifference. Bah, yet another French-language adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ great novel, we all thought, how good could it possibly be? And then it turned out to be absolutely brilliant, one of my top 10 films of the year, in fact.
Now along comes the second instalment, The Three Musketeers: Milady, and it’s every bit as good, at least for the thrillingly paced first half.
If it eventually sheds a single star, it’s only because Dumas’ plot of Protestant rebellion does get quite complicated and, well, certain liberties are taken that don’t altogether work.
Nevertheless, it remains one of the great joys of the year, especially for anyone who is fond of top-class swashbuckling (the fight scenes are magnificently well staged and shot) or admiring of Eva Green, who is fabulous once again as the scheming and provocatively sexy Milady of the title, Lady de Winter.
But then this is a beautifully cast film right across the board, even for those of us who grew up with the Jeremy Brett and Brian Blessed version on the telly or Richard Chamberlain and Raquel Welch on the big screen.
François Civil is hugely endearing as the floppy-fringed and impetuous D’Artagnan, but as the musketeers head off to La Rochelle in search of treachery and betrayal it’s the big guns who catch the eye – Vincent Cassel as the ageing Athos, Romain Duris as the handsome Aramis and, of course, Green. She’s as good here as she was in Casino Royale, all those years ago.
In The Family Plan, Mark Wahlberg plays the apparently unremarkable Dan Morgan, successful car salesman by day, devoted family man by night and weekends. Until one day he is attacked in a supermarket while he has his baby son strapped to his chest, and suddenly reveals he has a very particular set of skills of his own.
Yes, it turns out that Dan used to be a top assassin, and now his former employers are out to get him, placing not just him but his whole family – until this point entirely oblivious of his past – in danger. So the answer, obviously, is a family road trip to Las Vegas.
This is familiar territory that calls to mind the like of Spy Kids and Mr & Mrs Smith, but with Michelle Monaghan and Maggie Q providing support, it’s reasonably entertaining.
Meg Ryan doesn’t make many films these days, so it’s genuinely nice to see her in What Happens Later, where she not only co-stars opposite David Duchovny but also directs.
The pair play former lovers who haven’t seen each other for 25 years but are thrown together by coincidence and a convenient snowstorm at a rapidly closing airport. Where they talk and talk and talk…
Too obviously adapted from a stage play, it lacks the sort of bigscreen appeal to justify a trip to the cinema, but you might be slightly more forgiving when it moves to a screening platform.
Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child Of Fire sees director Zack Snyder crossing Star Wars with The Magnificent Seven and hoping to get a whole new science-fiction franchise out of it.
Based on the quite appalling first instalment, we must all hope he doesn’t succeed.