The 4 Musketeers (aka D'Artagnan et les trois mousquetaires/2005/French TV)

 

Picture: C     Sound: C+     Extras: C-     Main Program: C

 

 

Alexander Dumas’ tales of Musketeers have been popular forever, though sometimes, they have been adapted in goofy form.  There was actually even one set in WWI with John Wayne as an early Saturday Morning movie serial and it was even fun, if not faithful to the book.  Then there are the Richard Lester versions some people love, as the following review link will testify to:

 

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/457/Complete+Musketeers+(British+Set)

 

 

Except for Brian De Palma’s Mission: Impossible female lead Emmanuel Beart, a new 2005 French TV mini-series version of The 4 Musketeers with a mostly French cast tries to be more realistic, but never quite takes off.  The episodes have been edited down into this three-hour version for DVD and unless you are a huge fan, you will find this a huge, overproduced, pretentious bore.  Swordfights are not even good and the lack of energy is surprising.  Director Pierre Aknine goes so by the book as he sees it that you are better off reading the book.  Try the Wayne version of Three instead if you need to see extensive such action based on Dumas work.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is surprisingly soft, made worse by (once again) a silly gutting out of color.  Allen Smith’s cinematography is not that memorable, but I wonder how much better this would have been if they left the colors alone.  The Dolby Digital is here in a 5.1 mix that tries to boost the TV audio, but you can tell this was not originally conceived for multi-channel.  The combination can be trying often, especially at three hours length.   Extras include trailers only.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo