Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

I like Black Panther, but I didn't like this movie.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Frankly, I find it very hard to believe that a major Euro-Cult exponent, the legendarily irascible 85-year old Italian film-maker Riccardo Freda, came out of 13 years of retirement to make this belated French swashbuckler with such art-house favourites as Sophie Marceau, Philippe Noiret, Claude Rich, Sami Frey and Luigi Proietti, got himself fired from the project (as so often happened in the past, often to the benefit of his cinematographer Mario Bava) and distinguished director Tavernier stepped in to complete the picture; the more likely scenario is that it was avowed Freda champion Tavernier's idea to dust off (and update) an old script from the elderly director's glory days of the "Peplum" subgenre - already filmed by him as the obscure and elusive THE SON OF D'ARTAGNAN (1950), co-starring the ubiquitous Gianna Maria Canale, his then-current muse/companion - now that swordplay was once again en vogue on screen in France – presumably following the worldwide success of the Oscar-nominated 1990 Gerard Depardieu version of CYRANO DE BERGERAC! Having said that, Richard Lester had himself resurrected his long- dormant Alexandre Dumas diptych from the mid-1970s for one final (and, ultimately, fatal) fling with 1989's middling THE RETURN OF THE MUSKETEERS – in which Noiret (here as D'Artagnan) had played Cardinal Mazarin i.e. Proietti's role in the movie under review! Whatever the real story is, the eventual outcome was a solid effort all round which, while perhaps not scaling the expected heights given its pedigree of cast and crew, should provide lively entertainment for viewers of all persuasions. In retrospect, Marceau may have been right in complaining that, notwithstanding the film's title, her part should have been bigger: she still gets to shed her clothes and wield the sword on various occasions and her characterization here must have decided Mel Gibson to cast her in his own epic BRAVEHEART (1995) and she did get her own later period vehicle in MARQUISE (1997; which I am not familiar with) in which she romances Louis XIV (who is still a royal teenage brat in this one!). Instead, Tavernier's movie chooses to focus on the tattered relationship between the reassembled Four Musketeers: even the supposedly dead Athos turns up as the one-eyed henchman of Mazarin! Marceau gets her own romantic foil in a rebellious poet (played by Tavernier's own actor son, Nils), as does bumbling villain Crassac (a delightful, Cesar-nominated turn from Rich) in his unscrupulous accomplice Eglantine De Rochefort (Charlotte Klady). For the longest time, we follow the two factions on the separate trails of 'Double McGuffins': the musketeers' clue turns out to be nothing but a laundry list, in spite of Bishop Aramis (Frey) extracting Biblical references from the message, obtained from a fugitive black slave in the very opening sequence, the initials of which when combined together spell "Crassac"!; Mazarin's clue, then, was nothing but Tavernier's on-the- spot poem to Marceau during their first meeting in a tavern! Even so, fencing instructor D'Artagnan and his aging buddies still manage to stumble on the real plot on the young king's life during his coronation.Recently, it seems like I always get to make a reference to my unwatched pile in my reviews: this one is, obviously, no exception since I own several tenuously "Musketeers"-related films I have yet to catch up with: A MODERN MUSKETEER (1917; with Douglas Fairbanks), BARDELYS THE MAGNIFICENT (1926; with John Gilbert); CARDINAL RICHELIEU (1935; with George Arliss), THE THREE MUSKETEERS (1935; with Walter Abel), UNDER THE RED ROBE (1937; with Conrad Veidt), an unsubtitled Spanish-language copy of THE THREE MUSKETEERS (1942; with Cantinflas), Roberto Rossellini's THE TAKING OF POWER BY LOUIS XIV (1966), the uncut International version of THE FIFTH MUSKETEER (1979; with Cornel Wilde as D'Artagnan) and THE MUSKETEER (2001; with Catherine Deneuve). To end this review as I had started it by referring to Riccardo Freda again: it should be noted that I have just acquired off of "You Tube" a copy of his professional rival Vittorio Cottafavi's MILADY AND THE MUSKETEERS (1952), sourced from a late-night Italian TV broadcast

Only based on Alexander Dumas' musketeer tales, not taken from them, this movie still manages to capture the sense of fun and adventure that marked his novels.The four older actors playing the retired musketeers who are drawn back into the fray by D'Artagnan's daughter, Eloise, will be unfamiliar to most American viewers, but all of them have that same kind of slightly naughty French humor that so many Americans love in Gérard Depardieu (whose Porthos from the "Man in the Iron Mask" would have fit in perfectly here).And Sophie Marceau will charm the pants off of you - although her pants are about the only clothing item she manages to hang onto here. But she is saucy, funny and very strong.The scenery, too, will enchant - the castles, the countryside, all are gorgeous and true to the time.

Of course this was made before Leonardo's disaster. (although I didn't think it that bad) However this is so much better. Oh the humor is put in such a manner that it isn't distasteful. Sophie is so much more fiesty than the role she's in Braveheart. I'm glad they offered the subtitled version. I bought mine used, but this looks like another movie I'll have to find everything for. :)

This has got to be one of the best French films I have ever seen, the subtitles were pretty easy to read and the cast was supurb. A definite must see for anyone who liked Braveheart or Zorro.The entire cast brought out the adventure and the comedy of the film - Great Swordplay, especially the classical beauty Sophie Marceau. This film deserves plenty of awards, the media should be buzzing about "Revenge of the Musketeers".