The Three Musketeers: Part I - D'Artagnan

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Matthew D A perfectly fine adaptation of The Three Musketeers carried by the cast. Director Martin Bourboulon’s French swashbuckler The Three Musketeers (2023) is alright. Bourboulon’s direction is very generic, dour, yet serious. I wish the cool sword duels with rapiers were better shot rather than with shaky camerawork and rapid cuts around the action. The direction reminded me more of the 1970s Musketeer films, but colorless with worse lighting. Why is this relatively large budgeted movie shot like a television show? There’s so few colors and not very unique designs. I wish Bourboulon had some style as a director because Alexandre Dumas’ tale of love, friendship, betrayal, corruption, loyalty, and royalty is still gripping. Screenwriters Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte keep things standard and serious, but could have used more humor and romance like the 1993 Three Musketeers or elongated sword duels like the 1970s films. Could we not have gotten gorgeous period costumes and vivid colors? I cannot stop thinking about how dark the lighting is and how poorly shot this movie is when it could have been beautiful and ornate. François Civil is likable as the young romantic musketeer hopeful D'Artagnan. He’s charming, if a bit dull. Vincent Cassel is excellent as the ethical Musketeer named Athos with a compelling somber performance. However, he’s hardly in the film as he’s arrested most of the run-time like they couldn’t afford Cassel for long. Romain Duris is fun as the religious and smooth Aramis, but underused. Pio Marmaï is alright as Porthos and made into a bi-sexual, but given little other development as a character. Eva Green is sexy as the ravishing and conniving Milady de Winter, given a tragic backstory, as she chews the scenery. Green is also hardly in the film. Lyna Khoudri steals all of her scenes as the lovely and charming Constance Bonacieux, who falls in love with D’Artagnan. Louis Garrel is amusing as King Louis XIII with his ideas being sure of mind, yet still manipulated by the villainous Cardinal. Vicky Krieps is alright as Anne of Austria, who loves the Duke of Buckingham in secret. She’s a bit emotional, but I found Khoudri the most convincing among the actresses. Jacob Fortune-Lloyd is fine as her lover The Duke of Buckingham. Éric Ruf’s sinister Cardinal Richelieu, but he’s mostly on the sides. I wish he was being dastardly more on screen rather than most of his works and lines being in the shadows. He’s very underused. I could not tell you who any of the supporting cast is besides these ones. Cinematographer Nicolas Bolduc’s shaky camera shots during the sword duels were very annoying. I liked the close-up and medium shots during the conversations at least. The wide shots of the lavish French locations were nice, but the historic scenery is doing the heavy lifting visually. Mathilde Fouant, Luc Reyrolle, Marc Rossero, and Eric Gies’s dark daylight lighting looks natural, but ugly. The swordsmen for the stunts are pretty good at the very least. Composer Guillaume Roussel’s music is pretty, but ultimately forgettably without any main themes. Sound designers Loïc Gourbe, David Rit, and Grégory Vincent have voices speaking clearly and swords clanging loudly. However, there is one scene where Vicky Krieps shoots a bird and the Wilhelm scream of a man plays loudly that is laugh out loud awful. Costume designer Thierry Delettre created realistic sewn cloaks and dresses, but they sure are ugly. The washed out colors are just hideous. The musketeers are just in black with faded browns and the cardinal’s men are all in faded red. Even the king’s outfits are just black with a bit of white or brown. There’s not vivid blue and white for the musketeers, brilliant crimson for the cardinal, nor royal purple anywhere for the king! All the makeup and hairstyling makes every single person look like they are covered in mud and dirty. It’s probably realistic, but certainly unpleasant to look at for 121 minutes. Overall, I’d just recommend watching the two 1970s Three Musketeers movies for that old school vibe or the 1993 Three Musketeers with Kiefer Sutherland for a much better experience. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 08/01/25 Full Review Harry M This is different from the original story and book. Porthos is bisexual in this movie and one of the characters is way too old. It started off fantastic until seeing Porthos in bed with a woman and man - What the heck! Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 05/04/25 Full Review Clementine H I have tried to watch this movie 3 times, renting it on Amazon. I wanted to like it because I love 80% of the actors in this movie. But this is the 3rd attempt and I can't pass half of the movie before switching to something else. Every one knows the story of the 3 musketeers so I was expeting a lot in terms of artistic directions and sub plots.. but it fell flat. Even the actors like Romain Duris, Vincent Cassel, François Civil, Eva Green who usually radiate, exude nothing in this picture. I think the main issue for me is the photography (unecessary dark) and the dialogues : they don't convey emotions. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/09/25 Full Review Tim G Rough when for some reason a streaming only has the dubbed version. Awful. But fun movie. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/08/25 Full Review Ellie B Unexpectedly awesome. An extremely well done take on a classic. I'd definitely recommend. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 11/29/24 Full Review Audience Member Loved the visual of the movie. The actor were so rightfully casted. I was so happy seeing Eva Green in a french movie again alongside Vicent Cassel and so on. I really like the story and found it so true to Dumas' story Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 09/20/24 Full Review Read all reviews

The Three Musketeers: Part I - D'Artagnan

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