Les Trois Mousquetaires : D'Artagnan

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. (2023-04-10)

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! (2023-10-15)

This is my third encounter with the immortal classic after The Man in the Iron Mask from the 1990 and the somewhat overdone Paul W.S. Anderson adaptation, but I have never read the book, so I can't blame filmmakers for their faithfulness to the source material or lack thereof. After watching this film, however, and considering that the story of The Three Musketeers is split into two films, you can sense that they took care in this regard. As this is a notorious story, the film offers no big plot surprises, but it does offer solid adventure full of action, intrigue and well done fights – the "bloody" wedding or the chase on the cliffs really had some serious moments. I'm curious to see what the sequel will bring, which will give more space to Eva Green, who is perfect in these demonic creatures. (2023-04-13)

In the future, on a repeat, I'll always prefer Lester's Musketeers anyway, because it has enough juicy popcorn to feed all of Nigeria, it doesn't skimp on the humour (which is almost absent in this French version) and the vivacious Michael York is like the finest wine as D'Artagnan. On the other hand, I like this French unpolished concept. Especially the magnificent production design! Muddy, unpaved, sandy streets, men sweaty and dirty (and with yellow teeth ), when, as we know, hygiene was a priority in the 17th century, even among the high classes, and the camera with muted colours adds a lot to that realistic impression. And what can we say, cherchez la femme Eva Green is after all a sexier milady than Faye Dunaway. So actually, when I sum up the comparison, I come out with a tie, and that's not a bad mark at all. (2023-11-10)

A swashbuckling, raucous and modern adaptation of Dumas' classic. More emphasis is placed on the action scenes, which are gritty, dynamic, and with great choreography. There have been so many versions of “The Three Musketeers” that I'm not even sure how it was supposed to be done, but the snipers in the church is a very good sequence. Eva Green is incredible as Milady, and overall it's a very strong cast. The ending is outrageously open and I'm looking forward to the second one. (2024-04-28)