I’m not sure how I missed
The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan earlier in the year, but I wish I’d also been able to skip the two-hour sequel
The Three Musketeers: Milady. Somewhere amongst the goulash of plot and hard to distinguish characters there’s a story that picks up on a previous triumph of saving the king’s life and sees a series of sword fighters equipped with pistols, muskets and knives try to stop a war, try to find a kidnapped love, and fend off the advances of a mysterious nemesis.
The superior fighting and strategic talents of Milady make her the deserving star of the story. Played by a very calm under pressure Eva Green, she runs rings around the men, a chameleon escapologist who always lives to fight another day despite being tied up in a bodice. Disney+ and Pathé are allegedly making a TV spinoff
Milady Origins.
Are there just three musketeers? To be honest, without seeing the first part of the film, it felt like the number jumped between two, three, four, and many, many more depending on the scene. They needed badges or Thing 1/2/3 t-shirts.
The sets are lavish, decorated with gold leaf and rich fabrics. The horses behave impeccably. The unerringly cannons never fall short of their doomed target. Comedic moments are left in the hands of just one character whose oafish chat up lines are amazingly successful. Vincent Cassel is barely recognisable playing Athos. Much is made in the media of Porthos (played by Pio Marmaï) being bisexual, but it must only be obvious if you’ve watched the first film.
The final scene suggests that the story isn’t quite over and this could conceivably be a trilogy. With the two films shot back-to-back, box office receipts for the first instalment tell a different story: the overall production seems unlikely to wash its face so we may yet be spared any more of this seventeenth century nonsense on the big screen.
The Three Musketeers: Milady is being screened in cinemas – including the Queen’s Film Theatre – from Friday 15.
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1 comment:
Terrible, witless review of a great film. Don't let it put you one of the most entertaining, action-packed and gorgeously shot movies of the last few years.
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