D'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers (2007)

First things, I find this one of the best movies about the great story of Alexandre Dumas, and luckily it sticks quite true. Quite, but not totally. I understand minor changes like Porthos not being the shallow, large framed guy described in the book (I always will love Depardieu from Man in the iron mask in this role) or d'Artagnan witnessing the hanging of Mylady de Winter, even the "with a rowboat across the channel" thing, but.....WHY ON EARTH DID THEY HAVE TO PUT DEMONS IN IT?I think Mylady de Winter would be as interesting and rewarding role to get? Why does she suddenly have to have Superpowers? This is the only real issue I have with this movie.The rest of the movie is splendid. Except for Porthos, who's actor does a fine job after all, all the cast is close enough to the book as possible. Especially Elbaz plays d'Artagnan with that vibe and risk-loving panache he appears to have in the book. This is one of the few movies which does not alter or skip the musketeers' dealings with Buckingham, in fact it sticks to the novel with the sole exception mentioned above.As to the ongoing discussion of Beart being too old: a) She looks gorgeous as ever. b) Mylady de Winter is described in the book as a Lady in her late thirties...so why the fuzz. After all, she married athos at age 20, got hanged after a year, became the Cardinal's (a great Karyo) top spy in the meantime, married Winter's brother, killed him ....you see she was quite busy all the time.So I can sum up: A great rendition of the musketeers' legend with just a bitter pinch of story liberty.8/10

"The 4 Musketeers" is a terrible movie. Three painful hours of utter crap. Milady is a ninja and made a pact with the Devil, who gave her magic powers. These powers consist of Sci-Fi level special effects, and zooming in on her eyes a lot. Oh, and D'Artagnan has a magic white hawk, who follows him around and saves the day. I think that's what gave him the power to row across the English channel within the space of only a few hours. And have I mentioned the really bad dubbing from the original French? (There was no option to watch it in French with English subtitles). Anyway, what I really wanted to say was, Stay away from this movie... it's three hours of your life that you'll never get back.

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.

This French version of the famous story should have been much more faithful to Alexandre Dumas' text... I'm hugely disappointed. Milady Winter could not be just a bad girl, that was too easy. She had to be Demon-possessed!!! I'm not kidding, she does sign a covenant with the Devil in this film!!! It happens in the woods just after Athos try to kill her... And the young boy D'Artagnan witnesses the whole mess... Years later D'Artagnan would be the only one who could beat her... Why the writers have invented it? Was it really necessary? Certainly the writers, or the producers, decided the original story was not good enough to attract audience. There are also some Matrix-like fighting scenes. This had already been done much better in Peter Hyams' The Musketeer (2001) which was not a serious film.The rest of the film is not that bad. Good cast, good production values. But why they had to include the Devil in this???