MovieChat Forums > The Musketeer (2001) Discussion > only one good version

only one good version

posted 18 years ago by justring
8 replies | jump to latest

Look, there is only one good version of Dumas' book that has ever been made. Not only that but its the only movie i've ever seen that had acuratly portrayed the period of history the story is set in. This film is Richard Lester's 1973 version of the Three Musketeers (Which they split into two movies so they could cover the whole stoty, the second film being called The Four Musketeers). As one who studies history and historical martial arts, this is one of my favourite films - so if you want to see a good movies about musketeers, go rent that one. And may no-one ever let aan asian style choreographer work on a european based historical film again. Hong-kong films are great, but Yuen-style fighting in seventeenth century france is ridiculous.

[–] darth_insidious 18 years ago

I don't think this can even be considered a version of the book. There's just too many differences to even begin to list them. This has about as much connection with the Dumas book as the film Hook had with J.M.Barrie's Peter Pan. It provides some characters and a setting, the rest is fabricated for the film.

[–] chatroux13 11 years ago

I can't undersand how the Queen could have been childless! Where did Louis XIV come from? This Queen was married to Louis XIII, the father of Louis XIV!! She is obviously too old in this movie to have had a son later!!!

[–] eeleyebrown 17 years ago

I agree. The Michael York/Oliver Reed version is the best version. This was a good action movie but there was no story and the changed the roles of many of the chatacters. They should have eliminated the Muskateer story and made it totally different.

[–] Fad64 17 years ago

"They should have eliminated the Muskateer story and made it totally different."

...at which point they'd lose the only catch they had!! Isn't that a bit like trying to pitch a film by saying 'It's the story of X, but we're not going to have X in it! The story will be about Y instead!'?
Ya see what you've got there is a DIFFERENT film! So, if your suggestion is actually that they should have made a film that wasn't about a musketeer and wasn't called 'The Musketeer'(I presume) in 2001....I think you'll find that there were actually several films made in that category, in fact ALL of them except this one!

[–] Omni_God 17 years ago

There is only one truly brilliant version of the three musketeers - it dates from 1834.

That aside, the Michael York version is good - but it is *far* too British. Michael York was a)too old, and b)too sensible in his role as D'Artagnan. He is a wonderful actor, but He just struck me as wrong in that movie. He fails to really encapsulate D'Aratgnan's gascon attitude, I mean, I just can't imagine Michael York actually running someone through, he just seems far too nice.

The best Musketeer movie i've seen, is Man In The Iron Mask. It has great acting, for the most part (in the 4 important roles anyway), it flows well, and the fight scenes are convincing and realistic. There is obviously a lot of changing of the story to fit a more Hollywood audience - but the actual story doesn't suffer that much, the characters stay true to Dumas' originals, and visually it's one of very few musketeer movies that actually looks as though it is in 17th century France, rather than a film set.

[–] ContinentalOp 16 years ago

Which 'The Man in The Iron Mask' adaptation? The one with Richard Chamberlain, Patrick McGoohan, Louis Jourdan, Jenny Agutter, Ian Holm and Ralph Richardson? Yeah, I liked that!

Regards,
The Count

The Apple Scruffs Corps, 07

"Imagine"

[–] peterquennell 9 years ago

I saw Richard Chamberlain on the stage last week. He did a wonderful and very funny job as an adamant priest who his intended convert really stiffed.

http://www.thenewgroup.org/sticks-and-bones.html

Amazing play. An ending I bet no-one in the audience ever expected to see.

[–] clydeerwin 9 years ago

I agree with OP but must confess to liking the action on this one. I'm guilty.

I would add The Man in the Iron Mask (the Chamberlain one with Jenny Agutter!)

Other than those two, the Musketeers have been done great disrespect.