I enjoyed this. Plenty of swash, buckle and enough faith with the original Alexandre Dumas story to give the narrative - and the production - some integrity. "D'Artagnan" (an engaging François Civil) arrives in Paris bent on becoming one of the KIng's discredited musketeers. Before his first day is out, though, he has encountered three individuals whose honour requires an early morning meeting with swords drawn. Luckily before they have their opportunities to fill the young man full of holes, "Athos" (Vincent Cassel); "Aramis" (Romain Duris) and "Porthos" (Pio Marmaï) join forces to defeat the men from the Cardinal's guard who inform them that duelling is illegal. That pretty much sets the tone for this enjoyable action-packed adventure. There is a soupçon of romance between our young hero and "Constance" (Lyna Khoudri) but that doesn't get much opportunity to clutter up the thread as our four intrepid and loyal soldiers have to try and save the honour of the queen (Vicky Krieps) from the scheming of Cardinal Richelieu (Eric Raf) and his arch-assassin "Milady" (Eva Green). Now, as usual, Green is terrible. She exudes precisely no menace and made me wish it could have been Lana Turner reincarnate. Otherwise, though, Martin Bourboulon keeps the pace moving nicely, the scenarios are authentic looking with a great deal of Parisian mud to trudge and fight through before a daring denouement that sets the whole thing up for what I assume is a part two. Simply, it takes skill to screw up a strong story and nobody here manages that - it's a good, old-fashioned, escapade driven story of loyalty and duplicity and for two hours, I lapped it up.
