The first instalment of a two-film French-language adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’s swashbuckling classic, this lavish period drama taps enthusiastically into the spirit of the source material. This is flamboyant, ostentatious, grandstanding film-making, unashamedly old-fashioned and incorrigibly entertaining. Everything, from the opulent court costumes to the showy single-shot fight sequence that cements the grudging respect between D’Artagnan (François Civil) and his new comrades (Vincent Cassel, Romain Duris, Pio Marmaï), is delivered with a flourish and a wink. All the muck and sweat in the world fails to disguise the fact that Civil makes for an impossibly pretty D’Artagnan, but the picture’s seductive power lies elsewhere, with a glorious, typically extravagant performance from Eva Green as the treacherous Milady. She’s great fun in a role that might have been tailor-made for her skill set: Milady is vampy, venomous and dripping with goth jewellery.
In cinemas now
