When I reviewed The Three Musketeers (1993), I commented on the confusion of the title.  I almost began my discussion of the latest cinematic version of Alexandre Dumas’ classic swashbuckling novel about seventeenth century intrigue in the French court making a similar point.  However, The Three Musketeers, Part 1: D’Artagnan (2023) has a long stretch where there are actually just the eponymous number shooting guns and swinging swords.  By the end, it expands back to four, with King Louis XIII (Louis Garrel) noting the addition.  Does any of this make this iteration better than its predecessors?  You would have to be familiar with the others to make that judgement.  As for my take on today’s selection, read on to find out.

Like its film cousins, The Three Musketeers, Part 1 begins with the title character (Francois Civil) on his way to join legendary Musketeers of the Guard.  This regiment of elite soldiers have a sworn duty to protect the King of France, and it is D’Artagnan’s birthright to take his place among them.  Along his route, being the noble person he is, he stops to assist a woman crying out for help.  She is being mugged by a band of ruffians, and his blade comes to her assistance.  When the fight is concluded, he goes to see who it is, only to be met by a mysterious woman who fires a pistol into his chest.  He is saved by a Bible, so hooray for the power of the Word.  This turns out to be Milady de Winter (Eva Green), and she destroys a letter carried by the damsel in distress, Isabelle de Valcour (Charlotte Ranson), who is eventually killed.  The missive had been from the Duke of Buckingham (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) to Anne, Queen of France (Vicky Krieps).  Instead of warning her away from an assignation of the two secret lovers, Milady forges separate messages inviting them to have a clandestine rendezvous.  This is because there are members of King Louis XIII’s court, namely Cardinal Richelieu (Éric Ruf), who want to see war between protestants and Catholics.  D’Artagnan is largely unaware of these machinations when he gets to Paris.  His entire focus is on joining the Musketeers, having to gate crash to do so in order to present himself to their leader, Captain de Tréville (Marc Barbé).  The Captain grants D’Artagnan cadet status, but his personal victory is sidetracked when he spots outside one of Isabelle’s attackers.  In his haste to catch up with this shadowy figure, D’Artagnan has individual run-ins with Musketeer veterans Athos (Vincent Cassel), Aramis (Romain Duris), and Porthos (Pio Marmaï).  Though D’Artagnan is in haste, he has enough time to arrange to duel each one.  He is not able to find his target, but he does secure a room with one of the Queen’s attendants, Constance Bonacieux (Lyna Khoudri), with whom he is instantly smitten.  Sadly, he cannot tarry long with her, but must go to meet the eldest of the men he is to duel, Athos.  Athos brings Aramis and Porthos as witnesses, and the other two are surprised to find D’Artagnan as the one Athos is supposed to fight.  Before any of them can cross swords, the Cardinal’s men come under the pretext of preventing any unlawful brawling, but are there to ambush the Musketeers.  D’Artagnan goes to battle alongside the other three, acquitting himself in their eyes.  They have a night of post-victory revelry, marred the next morning when Athos awakens with the murdered Isabelle in his bed.  Unaware of how she got there, but with the knife in his hand and guards in his room, the ever-loyal soldier submits to arrest.  He is innocent, but offers no defense.  The only thing he claims is that he did not commit the crime, but can give nothing to prove his lack of guilt.  Ergo, the judge orders him to be executed.  Upon the Captain’s appeal, they are given a few days to acquire evidence to clear Athos’ name.  The first thing that Aramis, D’Artagnan, and Porthos do to make this happen is to examine Isabelle’s body.  D’Artagnan recognizes her as the woman he had attempted to protect, which leads the three back to the scene of his first skirmish.  There they find three signet rings from prominent families on the bodies of men killed by D’Artagnan.  One of them has Valcour crest on it, which D’Artagnan investigates.  At their home, he encounters Milady posing as Isabelle, but the illusion is broken when she is visited by the same assailant with whom he had earlier tangled.  Meanwhile, Athos is freed by his radical protestant brother, Benjamin de la Fère (Gabriel Almaer), who expects Athos to join in their struggle against the king.  At the same time, the Queen and the Duke of Buckingham finally meet, though they wonder why they had not been warned against coming to each other.  At that moment the trap is sprung as the Cardinal’s men attempt to assassinate the Queen.  Luckily, Aramis, D’Artagnan, and Porthos are on hand to prevent any harm coming to her. Because of this violence, she requests that the Duke of Buckingham forget about her, giving her a fancy necklace by which to remember her.  That gift proves difficult as another of the Cardinal’s henchmen overhears D’Artagnan describing his and his companions’ actions to Constance.  This information gets relayed to King Louis XIII, who requests that his wife wear the jewelry to his brother’s wedding.  Constance relays this information to D’Artagnan, who must travel to England to retrieve the object.  He is joined by Athos on the way, and they are successful in their mission, though having to get it from Milady, who is trying to perform the same mission in the name of the Cardinal.  With the necklace once more adorning the Queen’s neck, the wedding proceeds.  Athos is outside the church when he hears the same chanting that accompanied his prison break.  He then enters the church and saves King Louis XIII’s life.  In return for his service, the king grants Athos a pardon, which happens not long after finally agreeing to go to war against the protestants. Before the Musketeers can leave, the Cardinal’s men kidnap Constance, who had overheard some incriminating conversation, and D’Artagnan is rendered unconscious trying to save her.

Yes, The Three Musketeers, Part 1: D’Artagnan ends on a cliffhanger because they decided to break the film into two parts.  In case you are eager to find out how this ends, rest assured I will get to the concluding installment.  In the meantime, I could talk about the unfair treatment of Catholics in the film.  In this rendering of the story, and others like it, Cardinal Richelieu is portrayed as a villain.  I am not against this entirely because of the besmirching of the memory of a high-ranking Catholic.  Contrary to popular thought, the Church does not honor someone simply because of their status.  In the seventeenth century, it was easier for people of questionable values to achieve power and rank.  Cardinal Richelieu, though, was not entirely a bad man.  Nobody is all evil, at least in the eyes of God.  It is us flawed humans who most often have distorted notions of absolutes.  If there is anything to criticize the real-life Cardinal Richelieu about, it is that he seemingly cared more about French politics than matters of Catholic Faith.  This is part of the reason for why he becomes Dumas’ main antagonist.  Under Cardinal Richelieu’s guidance during King Louis XIII’s reign, political power became consolidated in the French state, primarily with the throne.  Dumas wrote the novel on which this is all based in 1844, a time when France was undergoing liberal reforms.  Catholics in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries also did not care for Cardinal Richelieu aligning France with protestant nations, no matter the diplomatic wisdom of doing so.  Like those people, I, too, can be disparaging of our non-Catholic fellow Christians.  I believe with my whole heart in the teachings of Catholicism, and daily pray that the entire world can come to a similar acceptance.  To this end, I would underscore that the Church also tells us that to get there it must be a free-will choice, and that there is some form of grace in other faith traditions.  The Catholic way is the preferred way because we have centuries of examples of holy men and women doing extraordinary things in the name of His Universal Church.  You see some of these different views portrayed in the film, but I would not recommend it if you are looking for an accurate depiction of views of that day.

There are other historical inaccuracies in The Three Musketeers, Part 1: D’Artagnan, but mostly those are smaller details.  As a Catholic, I am also not thrilled with Aramis’ womanizing, especially since he is said to be a Jesuit priest, and is often shown giving the sign of the Cross.  Then again, it is more of what I have come to expect in terms of how Hollywood depicts Catholicism.  None of it is great, and neither is this movie.