The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan (2023) (French Language)

Review

121min

Genre:       Action, Adventure, Fact-based

Director:     Martin Bourboulon

Cast:         François Civil, Vincent Cassel, Eva Green…and more

Writers:     Matthieu Delaporte, Alexandre de La Patellière and Alexandre Dumas

-Synopsis-

A skilled young 17th century swordsman’s dreams of joining the legendary Musketeers sends him on an unexpected adventure when he becomes embroiled in a pan-European power conspiracy involving the court of King Louis XIII, a powerful Catholic Cardinal, and a mysterious woman pulling the strings, as he joins forces with the three most legendary of the king’s guards to unravel a mystery and stop a sinister coup in this native modern adaptation of the seminal swashbuckling novel.

After over a century of film and TV adaptations spanning global cinema—including several French versions and multiple Hollywood takes on the iconic mid-19th century Alexandre Dumas historical novel—one of the most screen adapted stories ever returns home and is given a 21^st century filmmaking injection yet retains the spirit of the original source material, as up-and-coming director Martin Bourboulon assembles a multi-generational cast of French film stars to give us one of the most dynamic, stylish and genuine adaptations of Dumas’ much-revisited master work.

François Civil stars as brash young swordsman ‘D’Artagnan’, travelling to Paris to join the Musketeers of the Guard when he inadvertently finds himself in the middle of a conspiracy which reaches the highest corridors of power of early 1600s France, and involves the Machiavellian ‘Milady’ (Eva Green) and powerful ‘Cardinal de Richelieu’ (Eric Ruf). But fortune favours the threatened rule of ‘King Louis XIII’ (Louis Garrel) and ‘Queen Anne’ (Vicky Krieps) when D’Artagnan becomes entangled with the King’s most legendary guards ‘Aramis’ (Romain Duris), ‘Porthos’ (Pio Marmaï) and ‘Athos’ (Vincent Cassel), as they join forces to solve a mystery and save the divided French court and country from its enemies . . . both foreign and domestic.

Featuring splendid locations, immaculate productions designs, sumptuous cinematography from Nicolas Bolduc (Enemy, La Belle Époque), and the swashbuckling action and spectacle to match, ‘The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan’ is France’s answer to a Hollywood historical epic, all fed by a healthy budget to do justice to the iconic source material. Everything you could hope for from a modern adaptation of this classic adventure story is here, including not only the sabre-swinging, horse riding, gunpowder-fuelled action you might expect but also plenty of humour, drama, and even a splash of romance—all sumptuously styled and immaculately dressed.

Yet this adaptation also boasts a more complex and considered narrative than most of its screen predecessors, both foreign and domestic, featuring more of the political intrigue and politics of court which helped to colour the source novel than in its many previous Hollywood adaptations, taking some artistic license with the semi-historical source material but generally sticking close to Dumas’ 1844 novel, and proving something of a 17^th century French detective tale at times.

With more time to flesh out character dynamics as the first part of a two-part saga—the second already filmed ‘The Three Musketeers: Milady’ to be released at year’s end—plus with a story featuring a French royalist catholic identity threatened by the Machiavellian native antagonists but aided by le old ennemi England and its ambitious protestant ways, this very much a 17^th century French nationalist heroes’ story, albeit a non-jingoistic one from an earlier time which was then completely rejected.

With its fine cinematic craftsmanship, the accomplished narrative doing justice to the classic source material, and the dynamism and energy to match, all that’s missing in this blockbuster bouillabaisse are the performances to bring it all to life, and Civil is equal to the task with the cast he assembles. All the titular heroes see the actors bring a certain je-ne-sais-quoi to their roguish but honourable swashbucklers, with Vincent Cassel as the world-weary de facto mentor Athos standing out as the conflicted moral heart of the piece, and Louis Garrel and Vicky Krieps as a king and queen under threat adding an extra dimension to the story, meanwhile Eva Green is deliciously dastardly as the mysterious dark core of the film and one of its narrative lynchpins.

The fortunes of the film will however inevitably rise or fall with the exploits of its titular hero and how well François Civil manages to fill some big shoes, and luckily for us the reasonably young yet experienced French star excels in style as D’Artagnan himself, delighting as the head-strong and cock-sure young swordsman but still retaining an earnest and endearing quality, and displaying more than enough moxie and charisma to carry the film when necessary.

The Bottom Line…

A top-notch French swashbuckling historical epic and homemade Alexandre Dumas adaptation which arguably surpasses all which have come before, ‘The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan’ sees Martin Bourboulon dynamically combine stellar spectacle and expert design with compelling narrative to deliver a modern blockbuster with plenty of French flamboyance—doing justice to part of the legendary source novel, while leaving you in anticipation of what’s to come.

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