Review of The 4 Musketeers

This film along with Milady with Arielle Dombasle are the two best musketeer movies of the Millennium. I'm so glad there was so much more to offer in the way of Musketeer films especially since I wasted money going to see that horrible loosely based adaptation of The Three Musketeers called the Musketeer (2001). The acting performances were topnotch in this production. Vincent Elbaz was a fine D'Artagnan the right physical type just a little too tall and a little too mature but he gave an excellent performance.D'Artagnan in the novel was very polite,sensitive but brave and would not back down from any duel. When D'Artagnan met Rochefort character in the novel (a character not in this version of the story) he was mad at Rochefort for making insulting comments about his horse.Vincent Elbaz D'Artagnan unfortunately was a little on the obnoxious side.Porthos was a little too short but he pulled the part off just fine. Emmanuelle Beart's Milady de Winter gave a fine performance but I only wish they would have made this film ten to fifteen years before. I mean she was pushing 40 but she did look great and Arielle Dombasle who was in her late 40's also looked pretty good in the rival production Milady. I guess there is some truth to 40 being the new thirty and 50 being the new 40. Emmanuelle Beart was Milady who had to be reckoned with. She had the Devil in her alright. Heino Ferch's Athos was true to the Athos character and I appreciated that this film showed Athos hanging her which is accurate in the book. What I didn't care for about the production was young D'Artagnan seeing the episode in the woods. In the book Athos and D'Artagnan first saw each other in Monsieur de Treville's office and also in the book D'Artagnan was a Gascon (Basque) from the Southern part of France and Athos,the Count de le Fere came from a region not far from Paris. Karyo's Cardinal Richelieu is in tune with the character. German Actress Diana Amft is good Constance Bonancieux but not great. The Actor playing Aramis turned in a fine performance as did the actress playing Anne of Austria.The Duke of Buckingham was as in the novel a goodlooking man but by no means mild mannered.Buckingham had a temper was a womanizer,socialclimber and ambitious and by no means a coward. I also appreciate that this film retained many of the minor characters in the book.Great sets and scenery. Some of the problems with this version are:There is no Chevalier or Count de Rochefort and no Lord de Winter a big mistake as far as the character of Rochefort goes. Milady in this had no fleur-de-lis instead she has a serpentine Mark of the Devil which appeared on her skin after the Devil resurrected her after Athos had hanged her. Milady and Athos did not have a child together and she did not sacrifice her child to the Devil in exchange for her soul. Milady's son was by her marriage to her second husband Lord de Winter and his name was John de Winter aka Mordaunt and a "worthy" descendant of Milady de Winter he was an assassin and spy also and had his mother's appetite for revenge especially against his Uncle,his mother's executioner and the 4 Musketeers for depriving him of a mother.For more on Mordaunt read the novel and sequel The Twenty Years After and try to get a decent movie version of the novel.French and Russian versions of the Twenty Years After are the best and so is the BBC version.Richard Lester gave the Mordaunt character a sex change in his version and the Italian version is very loosely based.D'Artagnan was the shortest of the Musketeers and was olive skinned read the very first chapter of the novel and he was eighteen years old Aramis and Porthos were in their 20's and Athos in his early thirties. For physical descriptions of the Musketeers they were fair and handsome men read the first part of the novel and the chapter the Antechamber of Monsieur de Treville. Milady de Winter was 16 years old not twenty when she married Athos and Athos was 25 read the chapter in the novel Three Musketeers called the wife of Athos. When D'Artagnan first sees Milady in the beginning of the novel which started in the year 1625 and ended in 1628 Milady was twenty to twenty two years old and towards the end of the novel Athos in the chapter called How Athos found his outfit Athos when he finds out that his wife is still alive describes her as beautiful,tall,well-made,blue-eyed with a strange look to them (which might have inspired the screenwriter of this adaptation to make it appear that Milady was a demon possessed secret Satanist) and blonde who would be 26 to 28 years of age. Milady de Winter was not some small framed delicate little woman like Emmanuelle Beart or even Faye Dunaway who by far at least to movie critics and Dumas fans alike gave the best performance of the character to date in the 1973/1974 Richard Lester films,followed in the best performance categories Mary Peach of the 1966 BBC version and Mylene Demongeot of the French 1961 and not to forget Lana Turner in the 1948 MGM version. In my opinion this version is good but in no way compares with the more faithful versions of The Three Musketeers : Milady (2004),D'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers (1978) Russian film, The Three Musketeers (1999) video stage play,Bernard Borderie's 1961 2 pt Franco-Italian production,The 1966 BBC Production,1953 Andre Hunebelle version and the 1948 MGM production. A film that should be owned by any Musketeer fan and I can only hope that the new Three Musketeers trilogy which includes a prequel on the Musketeers and Milady's lives before D'Artagnan that will be coming to the big screen in 2011 will be worthy of such a great novel.