Murky tales of musketeers in pacy screen epic
The Three Musketeers: D'artagnan (15), (121 mins), Cineworld Cinemas
Oh dear. How embarrassing. The Queen of France has given her rather snazzy necklace to her English nobleman lover, and now the King is wanting her to wear it in public, rather testily demanding proof of her fidelity under the guise of quashing all the rotten rumours about her. Meanwhile, backed by those ghastly Brits, the protestants are amassing in La Rochelle and there is even talk of a separate nation within the nation. There’s huge pressure on Louis XIII to go to war, but the sovereign is determined for the moment to give peace a chance. Ironic really because of all the Beatles, King Louis is, looks-wise, pure George Harrison 1971 rather than John Lennon 1969.
It’s all coming to a head in 1627 France, with a court riven by rival factions, plotters absolutely everywhere, and the biggest snake of all, the dastardly Cardinal Richelieu,
so far seemingly completely unsuspected at the heart of the court. Lurking in the background too, laying the most enormous trap, is the highly dodgy Milady (Eva Green on fine form).
No wonder the poor King – and it’s worth watching the film alone for the gorgeous French Louis Garrel speaks as Louis – is all a dither, trying to do the noble thing, but besieged by plotters all around him. Thank goodness then he’s got the Three Musketeers in this, the story of how three became four with the addition of François Civil’s D'artagnan. But even they’ve got their problems: Athos (Vincent Cassel) gets condemned to death at one point simply for waking up next to a woman stabbed to death in his bed. It's the murkiest couple of hours you will spend in early 17thcentury France, and in truth a lot of the story-telling could actually be clearer – unless of course murkiness is precisely the point of it all. There are a few screens’ worth of “read this” context at the start, but they whizz by too quickly and you are quickly left, rather like the characters, to fend for yourself amid all complexity of it all. But after a couple of weeks of slightly trashy films, here at last is a classy one, elegantly shot, intelligent (maybe over intelligent), rapidly moving and challenging. Just like the three-soon-to-be-four musketeers you will need to keep your wits about you to survive it. Even then, you’ll probably be only just about hanging on. What a shame about the ending, though. It all seems sorted and then suddenly it’s not. Man down and love interest abducted, and abruptly we are left with a total cliff-hanger with the dreaded words “to be continued” shoved up on screen. Which really isn’t good enough. A decent film should be intact. It should be complete itself. It cheapens and undermines the whole thing to leave us all in the lurch like that. Nul points for that. But there are some lovely performances to savour, at least. The dithering King, the dastardly Milady, the naughty Queen, plus Romain Duris as Aramis and Pio Marmaï as Porthos alongside Cassel’s Athos. But maybe best – and after all, it’s his film – is Civil’s D'artagnan, the young gun desperate to prove his worth.