All for one, and one for all!
Two Cents is a Cinapse original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team curates the series and contribute their “two cents” using a maximum of 200-400 words. Guest contributors and comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future picks. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion. Would you like to be a guest contributor or programmer for an upcoming Two Cents entry? Simply watch along with us and/or send your pitches or 200-400 word reviews to [email protected].
The Pick: The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan & Milady (2023)
It takes some real doing to craft “the definitive version” of a story that’s seen so many notable big screen adaptations. From the 1940’s version with Gene Kelly, Lana Turner and Vincent Price to the legendary two-part adaptation in the 1970s to the 1990’s version that introduced so many youngsters to Tim Curry, it just keeps coming around. Even Paul W.S. Anderson took a crack with a pre-Hannibal Mads Mikkelsen – and that’s not even going into TV town. However, this latest version from Pathe, director Martin Bourbolon, and screenwriters Mathieu Delaporte & Alexander de la Patellière manages to take the swashbuckling swagger of the source material and the heavily physical action of modern action films like John Wick for a concoction all its own while streamlining the sprawling epic without losing its scope.
The Team
Spencer Brickey
Going into these films, my knowledge of the Three Musketeers went as far as knowing there were 3 of them, and that it sounded funny when you called them “Mouseketeers”. Lo and behold, after about 15 minutes of Part 1: D’Artagnan, I found myself totally enraptured by this story of swashbuckling Frenchmen with fun hats.
Existing as a sorta Star Trek ‘09 introductory film, we meet D’Artagnan as he makes his way into Paris, looking to become a Musketeer. A man who trouble seems to follow, D’Artagnan finds himself challenging 3 separate men to duels within the first few minutes of arriving. He soon realizes that he has found himself both in the middle of the famed 3 Musketeers, but also a national conspiracy that threatens to drop the country into civil war.
Part 1 doesn’t waste any time over explaining itself or what’s going on, instead it is all gas, no breaks for two hours, as we bounce from action set piece to conspiracy plotting to romancing and back to action set pieces. One could even argue it is a bit overstuffed as the film is broken more into several different mini-acts, rather than the classic 3, as we watch the Musketeers go from adventure to adventure, sometimes as the whole team, and then other times broken off into pairs to bounce off of each other.
This energy is felt most in the fight sequences, which are genuinely fantastic. Full of kinetic action, as the camera moves between different fighters, their blades clashing, and the Musketeers routinely showing off why they are the best of the best. French action has always been a dark horse contender for some of the best screen combat (see; Luc Besson, Louise Leterrier, Pierre Morel), and it’s nice to see it on display here.
By film’s end, we’ve seen the conspiracy against the King hit a fever pitch, as the Musketeers must fend off an assassination attempt against over a dozen men, bouncing between swords, guns and hand to hand combat. In its final moments, we finally see D’Artagnan become a full Musketeer, and it seems like we’ve only just scratched the surface of these boys going to work.
Which is why it is such a huge let down that Part 2: Milady doesn’t ever really capitalize on this. Once again, we follow the Musketeers as they try to foil the plot against the King’s head, and stop all out war. Instead of following what seemed like the establishment of the 4 Musketeers, as the last film had laid out, we instead watch the 4 of them split up for the entire runtime. Sometimes paired up, sometimes just 3, but very rarely all 4, with at least one of them sidelined by some sort of side quest or ailment.
While the action is still pretty great here, and probably contains my favorite sequence across the two films (that Musketeer castle siege is top notch), a lot of the swashbuckling has been replaced with scheming and backstabbing. Where Part 1 was all about the adventures, Part 2 hems closer to a political thriller, without the teeth or mystique needed to bring it all together.
A lot could be salvaged, though, if the ending really ramped it up. Sadly, this one is closer to a whimper than a bang. After building us towards both a French Civil War and a battle with Britain, the final reel is dedicated to D’Artagnan finding his beloved, a journey that quickly goes from romantic to a kinda tedious scavenger hunt, as he goes from person to person, finding another clue about her whereabouts. Once he’s finally discovered where she is, we follow 3 of the Musketeers (real weird to straight up bench one of your leads for the climax) as they unknowingly face a ticking clock.
Don’t want to give it away, and unsure if this follows a specific book, but I can’t help but to feel like Part 2 gets lost in the woods a bit. After such an explosive ending to Part 1, and promises of a full scale conflict, I can’t help but feel let down that what felt like a B plot is suddenly our climax. Even more frustrating is having the main plot, the assassination attempt and the shadowy orchestrator, wrapped up in like 30 seconds at the very end there. I mean, yeah, it’s a French film, so of course they are going to focus on the romance of it all, but at least give the thoroughline plot a proper send off, please.
While I was lukewarm on Part 2, I can definitely say I had fun with these as a whole. There’s some great action, good comedy gags, and a lot of charm up on screen. There really isn’t a weak link in the cast, with Cassel and Green being the stand outs (I also have to confess I spent a good chunk of the first hour of Part 1 try to figure out how I knew the D’Artagnan actor, before realizing he was the French spelunker in As Above, So Below). For 4 hours of my time, these watches went by quickly, and in the end, it was a pretty fun time overall.
Brendan Agnew
I could think of few better ways to bring our Swashbuckler Month to a close than with a brand-spanking new take on one of the definitive works of the genre. Having grown up with the 1993 film on regular rotation, I was in the bag for this from the moment the first trailer for the first film dropped, and delighted in watching what played out differently vs. the same as previous, ahem, stabs at the material. Part I (D’Artagnan) hews to a lot of the same beats as Richard Lester’s The Three Musketeers as it follows the titular youth from his country home to a Paris crawling with court intrigue, duels, and deadly infidelity as he attempts to become a Musketeer in his father’s footsteps. Francois Civil finds a deft balance between occasionally clueless outsider and fearless romantic without tipping over into clownish buffoon. The entire cast crackles appreciatively (Vincent Cassell is particularly inspired as Athos, given the slight changes they make to his character), but the biggest draw here is Eva Green as the infamous assassin Milady de Winter.
One of the biggest changes these films make is in completely eschewing Comte de Rochefort, the eyepatched agent of the nefarious Cardinal Richelieu played so ably by Mikkelsen, Michael Wincott, and Christopher Lee. Instead, Milady is the primary physical antagonist for D’Artagnan and his comrades on the ground as the Cardinal moves the chess pieces in the shadows. The first film bounces between an attempt to clear Aramis’ name of murder while also foiling a plot to expose the Queen of France’s affair with the Duke of Buckingham, climaxing in an explosive assassination attempt in a crowded church.
Part II (Milady) opens with D’Artagnan – now officially a Musketeer – attempting to rescue his beloved Constance after she’s kidnapped by de Winter, while Athos, Porthos, and Aramis are sent to war against the Protestant stronghold La Rochelle by King Louis XIII. There are daring chases and escapes, unexpected alliances, and more assassination attempts as Milady and Richelieu attempt to drive a wedge between the King and his personal guards, culminating in tragic last-minute rescue attempts and furious duels in burning buildings. The film shuffles several character meetings and reveals around so that they play like twists for those unfamiliar while letting those well-versed in the story feel the tension of being unable to stop a car crash they know is coming. As a whole tale, it delivers on both the crunchy action and bittersweet romanticism of the source material in a way that gives it its own confident identity.
If there’s a serious flaw in this two-part epic, it’s that there isn’t a sequel yet. The way the film recontextualizes the character of Milady, and the way she’s so beautifully brought to ferocious life by Green, make her one of the great swashbuckling antagonists of the past couple decades, but it also leaves a huge dangling thread that’s a hell of a gut punch to leave unresolved. Here’s hoping that their success with The Count of Monte Cristo sees Delaporte and de la Patellière return to the Musketeers saga, preferably sooner than “Twenty Years After.”
@blcagnew on Bluesky
Brendan Foley
The story of the three (or so) musketeers is so well-trod at this point that anyone deciding to take another tilt at the tale needs to do some serious thinking about what new there is to say with these characters that makes another go-round worth telling. Paul “not that one” Anderson opted to differentiate his with bullet time and steampunk and that’s how you know that the magic of the movies is still alive and well.
For this double feature, the goal of director Martin Bourboulon and his creative team seems to have been finding a way to combine a ‘gritty’ historical epic with the kinetic energy of modern action cinema. There’s a gristle and weight to the lavish period scenarios here that is missing from the squeaky clean Hollywood retellings, but the action scenes are shot with a jittery (albeit still very clear) sensibility that lends an immediacy and a real danger to the dynamic swordplay.
Really my only knock on the project is that it remains incomplete. Part 2 (Milady) is a massive cooldown in energy after the rollicking fun of Part 1 (D’Artagnan) and because Bourboulon et. al. have opted to keep their options open for future adaptations, there’s no grand cathartic finale to send you out of the movie on a real high. The changes made to the story make it pretty clear what direction the next entry would/will go in, but until we get those next installments, these Three Musketeers movies will have to sit alongside Costner’s Horizon saga as terrific longform cinema left stuck on ellipses.
Then again, the writers chose to make that incredible Count of Monte Cristo adaptation instead last year, so it’s not the ‘worst’ tradeoff of all time.
Ed Travis
Vive la long take action!
This latest incarnation of Alexander Dumas’ The Three Musketeers has been high on my watchlist for a long while, and after catching 2024’s The Count Of Monte-Cristo on the big screen, the urgency to check out this 2023 double bill of swashbuckling French action only increased. While these Musketeer films are directed by Martin Bourboloun, they’re written (slash adapted) by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patellière, who soon after co-wrote and directed Monte-Cristo.
While I think Monte-Cristo was more successful as an overall film, that’s in part because it tells a complete tale. I was shocked to find a cliffhanger at the end of this 2 part, 4 hour epic. That said, word on the street is that further adventures of this series are coming, so I’ll patiently wait.
What really works here in these Musketeers films are a few things: 1) Impressive, complex, long-take action sequences. These movies belong right up there with the other swashbucklers we’ve highlighted this month at Cinapse. Sure, long takes are a bit trendy these days, but they remain impactful if done well, and here they’re stellar, frequent, and bump the films up a notch. 2) My dude Vincent Cassel. I’m just always a fan. Love him here as Athos. 3) Eva Green: While I don’t think I love her the same way some of you creeps do (kidding), she’s spectacular here, even if we all see the twist regarding her coming miles away.
Some elements aren’t quite as strong, like the aforementioned inevitable twist. Or the occasional effortful/manufactured cliffhangers. Or the seeming sidelining of, you know, the other two musketeers: Aramis and Porthos. And lead actor Francois Civil is fine as D’artagnan, but doesn’t quite hold his own against Cassel.
Overall I’m highly interested in the continuing adventures of this particular team and cast’s vision of The Musketeers, and feel my life is just a bit richer for having experienced these top tier big screen, literary adaptations of rip roaring adventure.
And that wraps up our sensational swashbuckling season. We hope that you discovered a couple new favorites alongside getting to revisit some old friends – much appreciation to everyone who contributed, and may we cross swords again soon!
Goodbye to a Great: TWO CENTS Celebrates Gene Hackman
To make the passing of a cinematic legend, we at Cinapse are putting together a titanic selection of some of the late Gene Hackman’s biggest and best performances. From sports dramas to military thrillers to bone-fide classics, here’s a list of what we’re watching
April 7 – The Replacements – (Digital Rental / Purchase / TNT – 1 hour 58 minutes)
April 14 – The Poseidon Adventure – (Prime Video – 1 Hour 57 minutes)
April 21 – Unforgiven – (Paramount + – 2 hours 10 minutes)
April 28 – Crimson Tide – (Digital Rental / Purchase – 1 hour 56 minutes)
May 5 – The Conversation – (Prime Video – 1 hour 53 minutes)
May 12 – Enemy of the State – (Prime Video – 2 hours 12 minutes)
May 19 – The Royal Tenenbaums – (Digital Rental / Purchase – 1 hour 50 minutes)
And We’re Out.
