Swashbuckling Dumas classic a double dose of pure escapism

To justify Milady’s heightened visibility she has been transformed into a kind of supervillain, who seems to do evil deeds for sheer pleasure, and is capable of the most extraordinary feats. If Dumas was extravagant in his invention, the scriptwriters have gone even further, as signalled by a rejigged opening chapter that goes completely over-the-top. The character of Rochefort, whom D’Artagnan sees as his nemesis in the book, is rendered almost anonymous. It seems remarkable in a later scene when our hero recognises this bad guy and sets off in pursuit, because he will be a blank for most viewers, as he was for me.

As is so often the case with an adaptation of a famous book, there are disjunctions in the narrative where the writers seem to assume our prior knowledge; in-house references that only Dumas fans will get, and new inventions that aim to bring the story up-to-date. The most gratuitous moment is the announcement that Porthos is bisexual, which would have been news to Dumas. This innovation adds nothing to the plot and seems to be merely a nod to our modish obsession with gender diversity.

At least the filmmakers have resisted the temptation to make the Musketeers black or Asian, following the concept of ‘colour-blind’ casting that has turned every recent British rendition of Shakespeare or English history into a celebration of multiculturalism. The rationale seems to be a kind of revenge on Hollywood for casting John Wayne as Genghis Khan, or Liz Taylor as Cleopatra. And so one historical travesty is heaped upon another.

It’s not until Part 2: Milady that a black actor appears, in the form of army commander, Hannibal (Ralph Amoussou). There is also a plan for Pathé and Disney to produce two spin-off mini-series, Milady Origins and The Black Musketeer, but we don’t know anything about these ventures apart from the working titles. If you have a hankering to see a black actor play D’Artagnan, you might want to check out a British adaptation released last year to almost universal scorn.

It should be noted that Madame Bonacieux, played by young French-Algerian actor Lyna Khoudri, is a far more credible piece of casting than Richard Lester’s choice in the 1973 version of the story, the best known of the earlier movies based on The Three Musketeers. In that Hollywood pantomime the young, charming Madame Bonacieux was played by Raquel Welch, with Spike Milligan as her husband! (Not to mention Charlton Heston as Cardinal Richelieu).

Bourboulon has eliminated the elderly Monsieur Bonacieux altogether, necessitating some rearrangements of the plot, turning D’Artagnan’s adulterous ambitions into pure romance. It’s part of a general rejection of Dumas’s comic esprit, supplied in the novel by the pathetic Bonacieux, by the Musketeers’ valets, who have also gone missing, and by lengthy passages detailing Aramis’s devotion to the church. Making Porthos queer is a poor compensation.

Don’t expect profundity from these films. They are pure fairy floss, or Barbe à papa (“daddy’s beard”) as the French say. What’s most appealing is that French filmmakers are reclaiming the Dumas stories and creating convincingly gallic versions, with The Three Musketeers soon to be followed by The Count of Monte Christo, directed by scriptwriters, Delaporte and De la Patellière, with Pierre Niney as Edmond Dantès.

Given a choice between these flamboyant historical romances and the monotonous CGI-sci-fi of the Marvel Comics Universe or Star Wars, I’ll happily take my escapism from the past rather than the future.