Leonardo DiCaprio was still in his ‘Tadzio’ period when he followed TITANIC/’97 with yet another version of this Alexandre Dumas perennial, it’s the one where the aging Three Musketeers plot to replace bad-boy King Louis XIV with his secretly imprisoned identical twin. Grand entertainment from Dumas, here over-elaborated by BRAVEHEART/’95 scripter Randall Wallace making a queasy directing debut. Wallace showing a positive knack for placing the camera too close or too far from the action.* But about halfway in, Dumas’s narrative irony and sheer gusto, along with good teamwork by the male leads (Jeremy Irons, Gérard Depardieu, John Malkovich and Gabriel Byrne showing rare positive energy) come to rescue him. Alas, the women less memorable. Like the generic sets & costumes, they may be real, but look rented. And DiCaprio? Fine as the ‘nice’ twin (if only we had a chance to see him grow into his the Pretender King), but not so convincing as a cruel debaucher. And what’s with composer Nick Glennie-Smith? Usually an arranger, he uses a Pan Pipe for a wistful melody. A Pan Pipe? In Versailles? (Maybe he thought the company was still making BRAVEHEART.)
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Not that this version is unwatchable. But so many superior versions, some even follow the book! Hard to beat Douglas Fairbanks’ 1929 farewell to silent cinema, THE IRON MASK. By 1998, light, literate period adventures hopelessly out of fashion when not guyed as ‘camp.’ Yet one of the best in decades had just showed up, LE BOSSU/’97 a late effort from Philippe de Broca with Daniel Auteuil & Vincent Perez in terrific form. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/le-bossuon-guard-1997.html
SCREWT THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *You got the feeling from attempts at the genre around this time, that not only had filmmakes forgotten how these things worked, but that they were embarrassed to be trying.
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