The Three Musketeers - Part 1: D’Artagnan
Directed by Martin Bourboulon
Written by Alexandre De La Patellière & Matthieu Delaporte
Starring François Civil, Vincent Cassel, Romain Duris, Pio Marmaï
Unrated
In theaters, digital and on demand Dec 8

by Clayton Hayes, Staff Writer

The story of The Three Musketeers is one that, for me, feels familiar to the point that I can’t be sure when I was originally exposed to it. Despite having actually read the book while in school, I primarily associate Dumas’ classic tale of swashbuckling and derring-do with Tim Curry and a Jack Russel Terrier. I grew up in a PBS household and so Wishbone, which aired “Muttketeer” (their title, not mine!) in November 1995, is still my main point of reference for a lot of literary classics. And I’m not sure when I first saw Disney’s 1993 adaptation, directed by Stephen Herek, only that I dressed up as a musketeer for Halloween in 1992 before either of those could have entered my young brain.

What this amounts to is that I have a strong sense of The Three Musketeers’ story beats without retaining any of the historical and political context. I hope that my being a child is enough of an excuse, and that I was absorbing the story through a bunch of North American actors and one dog certainly didn’t help.

It appears that I’m not the only one who feels they could use a refresher on the minutiae of this classic tale. The first in a pair of films, The Three Musketeers - Part 1: D’Artagnan gives the story the prestige historical drama treatment (with a fair bit of swordplay to boot), and it appears to have been was well-received when it was released pretty much everywhere except the U.S. this past April. With the imminent French release of part 2, Les trois mousquetaires: Milady, it’s high time that the U.S. sees a wide release of Part 1 (with the sequel’s U.S. release slated for 2024).

I mentioned prestige historical drama above, and I do think that’s a good point of comparison. It certainly feels as though there’s plenty of influence from prestige TV seeping into the bones of D’Artagnan. But it’d be far too easy to write this off as only a French version of, say, BBC Two’s adaptation of Wolf Hall. Political intrigue and the nobility’s affairs (in both senses) do take up a large part of the spotlight, a wise choice by co-writers De La Patellière and Delaporte. Bringing the struggle between the Catholic monarchy and Protestant separatists of La Rochelle more to the fore provides some grounding for the more swashbuckling elements of the film.

Which is not to downplay the swordplay and battles that are essential to any adaptation of The Three Musketeers, and in this regard D’Artagnan does not disappoint. Fights feel messy and chaotic without resorting to the shaky camera angles and rapid cutting that have plagued Western action films for decades. Though it’s not the long, wide takes of a John Wick, as expected as that might be these days. Instead, viewers are dropped right in the middle of battle with cleverly disguised cuts leaving the action feeling hectic yet fluid. With how wonderfully the swordplay is handled, I was surprised to see that neither cinematographer Nicolas Bolduc nor editor Célia Lafitedupont have much experience with more action-oriented films. I suspect there was plenty of collaboration with the film’s veteran stunt coordinator, Dominique Fouassier, but it’s excellent work regardless.

The costuming work done for Eva Green’s character, Milady de Winter, is also surprisingly good. I say “surprisingly” only because her best costumes seem to barely appear in the film, in two short dialogue scenes with co-villain Cardinal Richlieu. It seems like such a waste for that design work to be deployed for so short a time, especially when none of the other costumes pop nearly as much. Even Vicky Krieps’ Queen of France pales in comparison.

Sadly, this is not the only misfire when it comes to Green and Krieps; the biggest letdown of this otherwise-excellent film is that the women characters are terrible. There are only three with significant parts, and each falls neatly into the stereotype of either murderous seductress (Milady) or beacon of “pure” womanhood (the Queen and her maidservant/D’Artagnan’s love interest Constance). Yes, the original work is from the 19th century, but the filmmakers took plenty of license in adapting Dumas’ work; in fact, they went into some detail about these changes in interviews. So why can’t their adaptation do anything more interesting with these roles? Krieps and Green do well with what they’re given, as does Lynda Khoudri, but they’re given very little.

Perhaps Les trois mousquetaires: Milady will correct the course on this a bit; the title alone suggests that Green’s character will be the primary focus. I just hope it will be in a way that allows for an entertaining film (which D’Artagnan certainly is) and for interesting women characters.