Wolff rating: NOT BAD
Plot summary: Dumas's novel hits the screen (again); our favorite King's Musketeers are unhappy with a haughty young Louis XIV, but their plot to try to save the French empire could be thwarted by D'Artagnan, who has become captain of the Musketeers.
Biased, pithy comments: Dumas, if he were alive today, would be working in Hollywood making action-adventure movies. He has an innate grasp of what makes things exciting, and his complicated tales of intrigue make the days of the Sun King in France alive 400 years later. Getting these books on screen is hard, though, since they're long and complicated and, in the case of sequels like ``Iron Mask,'', require a fair amount of backstory both in French history and in the history of the characters themselves. Sometimes filmmakers are up to the task, usually by simplifying the living hell out of the stories; I felt this worked in 1993's ``Three Musketeers'' and (with a little modulation in tone) in the old Richard Lester 1973+ versions. In this case, though, the production didn't gel until the last half hour, and suffering through the confused, half-baked first two-thirds can be uncomfortable to a hard-core Dumas fan like myself. Only Byrne and DiCaprio seem to be in the same movie together for a while; Depardieu is in some strange slapstick film unrelated to the rest of the cast, while Malkovich is reliving ``Dangerous Liasions.'' I gravitated towards Irons, but his accent clashed so badly with everyone elses that I think I liked him because he was the easiest to understand. No, it just doesn't quite work and isn't that much fun to watch. Skip it and read the book series, I say.
Other Notes: One gets the impression they only had cash for about 4 sets, so you get used to seeing the same exterior shots time and time again, most obviously at Versailles.
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, Gerard Depardieu, Gabriel Byrne, Leonardo DiCaprio.
Directed by: Randall Wallace