‘The Three Musketeers’ (2023): Burning Castles & Drunken Sword Fighting

Directed by: Martin Bourboulon || Produced by: Dimitri Rassam

Screenplay by: Matthieu Delaporte, Alexandre de La Patellière || Starring: François Civil, Vincent Cassel, Romain Duris, Pio Marmaï, Eva Green

Music by: Guillaume Roussel || Cinematography: Nicolas Bolduc || Edited by: Célia Lafitedupont, Stan Collet || Country: France, Germany, Spain, Belgium || Language: French

Running Time: 236 minutes

To say I have a rudimentary understanding of Alexandre Dumas’ 1844 adventure novel about “the Musketeers of the Guard” of 17th century France would be an understatement. While I saw the 1993 live-action English-language adaptation by Walt Disney once upon a time and am familiar with the story’s famous catchphrases like, “All for one and one for all,” that have permeated Western popular culture, I am not a devoted fan of the source material like I am of, say, Les Misérables (1862). On the other hand, the swashbuckler subgenre is a fun one on both page (e.g. Treasure Island [1883]) and on screen (e.g. Pirates of the Caribbean [2003, 2006, 2007]), and I have missed the character-driven adventure blockbusters of the 1990s-2000s that channeled period flavors from the European Age of Exploration (15th-17th century) and subsequent periods of colonization like The Mask of Zorro (1998), Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001), and The Mummy (1999, 2001).

Top: The action of The Three Musketeers would probably be quite stylish if we could see what the hell is happening. Bottom: Some great location-photography, including this scene near the tidal island of Mont-Saint-Michel, make Musketeers a good-looking film. You can’t fault the movie for its tone.

Enter Martin Bourboulon’s 2023 two-part feature adaptation of the Dumas novel by the same name, written for the screen by Matthieu Delaporte and
Alexandre de La Patellière. Despite the characteristic French style, setting, and origins of the source material, the 2023 Musketeers is the first cinematic French adaptation of the quintessential swashbuckler tale in 60 years and takes great advantage of the production’s native French landscape, iconic historical landmarks, and all star cast (e.g. Vincent Cassell, Francois Civil, Eva Green, etc.). I looked forward to this latest version of the Musketeers throughout 2023 (both theatrical installments were delayed an online release in the United States by almost half a year) given the pedigree and sizeable budget (~$78 million) for an overseas (re: non-Hollywood) genre film.

Imagine my relative disappointment, then, when I discovered the tiresome, lazy, dialogue-heavy comic relief, inconsistent characterizations, and sloppy, inexplicable handheld camerawork obscuring most every action sequence across this otherwise epic four-hour picture. Though fans of historical adventure films have much to enjoy with respect to The Three Musketeers’ production values and production-design (see below), its core political thriller narrative — heavily redesigned from its source material, by the way — is weighed down by poor acting and action direction.

From a writing and performance standpoint, Musketeers’ biggest problems are 1/2 of its titular three warriors (Cassel’s Athos, Romain Duris’ Aramis, Pio Marmaï’s Porthos) plus Civil’s protagonist, D’Artagnan. Duris and Marmaï, to be blunt, are wasted space in this cast, as neither has character development nor meaningful screentime beyond exposition dumps, a pointless subplot involving Duris’ diegetic sister (Camille Rutherford), and lame, talky, almost Marvel (2008-2019)-esque snarky jokes. Screenwriters Delaporte and de La Patellière might as well have written them out of the film altogether if they couldn’t give those two characters anything memorable to do over four hours, as the bulk of the on-screen character development rests with Cassel and Civil.

All of that is not worse than the film’s action set-pieces, however, where any and all close-quarters-combat is marred by chaotic handheld tracking shots that mistake length for fluidity and movement for clarity. While I generally prefer blunter, smaller scale, more relatable hand-to-hand fight sequences (e.g. The Killer [2023],  The Northman [2022], Fury Road [2015]) to flamboyant, extensive, flowery choreography that reminds me of dance rather than brutal violence (e.g. The Grandmaster [2013], Revenge of the Sith [2005], Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon [2000]), here, the actors’ movements and blocking are less exaggerated than the extreme, hyperactive camera movements and unnecessary digital edits. Extraction (2020, 2023), by comparison, is a masterclass in depicting efficient, blunt violence paced to digitally stitched oners that clarify scene geography, where the camerawork accentuates the on-screen violence rather than distracting from it. The situation in Musketeers is not quite “shaky-cam” per se (see Mile 22 [2018] and the many, many imitators of the Bourne [2002, 2004, 2007] trilogy), but the film’s seesawing, drunken long-takes are in that vein.

On the other hand, Musketeers’ positive attributes are not undone by the aforementioned weaknesses so much as they are obscured. The buildup to most fight sequences are well edited and the portrayal of the real-life castles, manors, and military fortresses lend authenticity to the diegesis a la Game of Thrones (2011-2019). The overall look and feel of the movie is immaculate when the camera stops swinging wildly to and fro outside the action scenes, as Bourboulon creates an identifiable mood through French-Canadian Nicolas Bolduc’s memorable compositions of lighting, fog, and indoor mise-en-scène.

Vincent Cassel and Eva Green enjoy a juicy relationship that doesn’t get enough room to breathe.

All in all, however, I must conclude that most Anglophone critics‘ positive reception to this latest Three Musketeers adaptation is a function of their tendency to grade non-English language genre films with decent production values on a curve (see also Jawan [2023], Troll [2022], et al.). I expected much from a Musketeers movie with two of the better French stars in recent memory (Vincent Cassel and Francois Civil) and an old-fashioned return to the practical stunts, FX, and iconography of swashbuckling adventure cinema from decades past; yet in the end, I only got half of what I wanted from the titular three four French royal guardsmen, with a surprising amount of populist filmmaking cliches from dialogue-driven comedy to haphazard exposition to overwrought action cinematography.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

SUMMARY & RECOMMENDATION: While the international distribution and marketing muscle of Hollywood doesn’t help the French cinema industry flourish on the latter’s native soil, I’m not sure what situation film critics should expect when $78 million buys a ~240-minute epic as inconsistent as this. Director Martin Bourboulon may have bitten off more than he could chew given his previous history in charge of modest family comedies and romantic dramas.

— However… the film looks great and takes advantage of its numerous historical backdrops, both natural and manmade. When the camera focuses on the interpersonal drama of Cassell, Civil, and female lead/antagonist Eva Green, Musketeers feels much more professional than its sloppy fight sequences.

—> I am ON THE FENCE with this movie, as much as it disappoints me to say.

? Will this movie get shown in certain other countries if they edit out all the black (Ralph Amoussou) and bisexual (Pio Marmaï) characters?