The Return of the Musketeers (1989)

Director:

Richard Lester

Writers:

George MacDonald Fraser (screenplay)
Alexandre Dumas père (book)

Release Date:

25 August 1989 (UK)

Genre:

Adventure | Comedy

Tagline:

Swashbuckling action, comedy capers and rollicking adventures, bigger and better than ever. They're back... all for one and one for all!

Plot:

It's 1649: Mazarin hires the impoverished D'Artagnan to find the other musketeers: Cromwell has overthrown the English king...

Plot Keywords:

Musketeer | Foreign Language Adaptation | Third Part | 1640s | Beautiful Woman

Cast

Michael York	...	D'Artagnan
Oliver Reed	...	Athos
Frank Finlay	...	Porthos
C. Thomas Howell	...	Raoul
Kim Cattrall	...	Justine de Winter
Geraldine Chaplin	...	Queen Anne
Roy Kinnear	...	Planchet
Christopher Lee	...	Rochefort
Philippe Noiret	...	Cardinal Mazarin
Richard Chamberlain	...	Aramis
Eusebio Lázaro	...	Duke of Beaufort (as Eusebio Lazaro)
Alan Howard	...	Cromwell
David Birkin	...	Louis XIV
Bill Paterson	...	Charles I
Jean-Pierre Cassel	...	Cyrano de Bergerac (as Jean Pierre Cassel)

Also Known As:

El regreso de los mosqueteros (Spain)
Le retour des mousquetaires (France)

MPAA:

Rated R for sexuality/nudity.

Runtime:

102 min

Country:

UK | France | Spain

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Rankcolor)

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Spain:T | UK:PG | USA:PG (original rating) | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Toledo, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain

Company:

Ciné 5

Trivia:

Eusebio Lázaro , Jean-Pierre Cassel and Philippe Noiret are all dubbed by British actors.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: In a scene in Justine's bedroom, a truck can be seen trundling across the road outside of her window.

Quotes:

Cardinal Mazarin: The people of England will permit anything - except cruelty to horses and a rise in the price of beer.

Movie Connections:

Version of The Man in the Iron Mask (1939)

It isn't funny and it isn't clever...

I'm afraid that, given the success of Lester's 'The Three Musketeers' and 'The Four Musketeers' with the same cast, I found this film a sore disappointment; more of a disappointment, perhaps, than if I'd hoped for less. There was only one moment when the film carried any serious depth for me, and that was in the confrontation between Aramis and D'Artagnan; although completely without basis in the book, that was the only episode that carried any hint of the bitterness of genuine feeling between the four reflected in the torn loyalties of the original.

As for the rest, it was played for parody, pure and simple. It might as well have been entitled "Return of the Son of the Bride of the Musketeers from 20,000 Fathoms", given its grievous case of 'sequel-itis'.

Rochefort is gratuitously re-introduced, despite the fact that he performs no plot function at all and trails around like a mangy dog, to be pitied even by Oliver Cromwell. We have the introduction into the story of a Milady Mark II, played as a pantomime Principal Boy in contrast to the all-too-feminine menace of her predecessor, who achieves the surprisi g feat of warding off ungallant attacks of four against one without inadvertently enlisting our sympathies as the underdog. We have overlong, over-slapstick fight scenes, epitomised perhaps by the opening sequence, where even Roy Kinnear's sad death during subsequent filming cannot excuse the tedium of his character's would-be comic antics. We have Oliver Reed miscast as ever as a brawling, bibulous Athos, requiring an unbelievably tasteless rewrite of the famous scene beneath the scaffold for attempted humorous effect(!) We have Athos' wet son Raoul brought in to make up the numbers in a nod at romantic interest -- unfortunately he's such a nonentity it's hard to care.

All the faults of the previous productions have been retained, writ large, while all of their charm has somehow been utterly mislaid. This isn't just an unsuccessful try at a sequel: in a way, I could have forgiven that. At times, alas, the film is little short of a travesty.

If you loved the originals -- this is one of the cases where I'd actively advise against watching the reprise, for the sake of sparing the embarrassment of the actors involved, if for nothing else. Watch the French-made "D'Artagnan's Daughter"(1994) for next-generation comedy; or, if you want to see Michael York play an aging D'Artagnan with genuine boisterous charm, try the harmless bit of fluff that was the 'mini-series' "La Femme Musketeer" of 2004.