Based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet, first published in 1844, and inspired in real characters.
In 1625, a young man from the province goes to Paris hoping to join the king's musketeers. There he befriends three musketeers and joins them in a mission involving a jewel which, through the machinations of the prime minister, could harm the relations between the king and the queen.
Bowdlerized version of the famous novel. The queen here does not have an extramarital affair (though it is implied that she has extramarital feelings which she represses); also, the protagonist's sweetheart is not an unfaithful wife but is unmarried and lives with her uncle. Furthermore, the prime minister's motivation is said to be to neutralize the queen's influence over the king, but no mention is made of the prime minister's wish to cause a war between France and England. This renders the plot frustratingly vague, even if one doesn't mind the puritanical undertones. I suppose only children would experience a really unfettered enjoyment of this film. Adults should concentrate on the action and forget (or mentally correct) those plot elements. That is not so hard to do, really, since the film is well directed and the actors perform reasonably well.
I know of two versions of this film, one with 119 minutes and another with 142 minutes of length. The longer one seems to have a more natural frame rate, but I am not sure that it has any additional scenes in it. There seems to be a third version with 128 minutes of length, but I know nothing further about it.
Rating: 52
No comments:
Post a Comment