The Three Musketeers Part II: Milady

Technically, Twenty Years After was the sequel to The Three Musketeers. However, the previous film only told half the story of Dumas’s first D’Artagnan novel, even though both parts of the story were shot together, Lord of the Rings-style. War has broken out, but fighting is what the King’s Musketeers do best. For them, spycraft and courtly treason are more dangerous in Martin Bourboulon’s The Three Musketeers Part II: Milady, which opens today in theaters.

The Three Musketeers saved the King at the end of Part I: D’Artagnan, but Athos awkwardly suspects his Protestant brother was involved. More ominously, they conclude there must be a traitor in court, very near the King. D’Artagnan’s lover Constance Bonacieux discovered the conspirator’s identity, which is why she was kidnapped at the end of the first film.

Much to his shock, D’Artagnan is also abducted by the Comte de Chalais, whose position as the leader of the Catholic League had placed above reproach. His henchmen cannot hold a good Musketeer for long, but when D’Artagnan rescues the Comte’s other captive, he is shocked to find Milady instead of Bonacieux. Of course, he is disappointed, but maybe not as disappointed as he should be.

Even though Part I seemed to be headed in a Queen Margot direction, when seen in its entirety, Bourboulon’s Three Musketeers is surprisingly faithful to the Dumas novel. Part II delivers more rousing swordplay and musketry action, while Bourboulon and cinematographer Nicholas Bolduc make spectacular use of the Bordeaux scenery. The second film is even more dynamic than the first, so it would be preferable to see it on a bigger screen.

The Three Musketeers—Part I: D’Artagnan

The King's Musketeers and Cardinal Richelieu’s guards are all French, but they spent a lot time fighting and killing each other. That was the early 17^th Century for you. Life was cheap, but honor was dear. The Musketeers must scramble to save the reputation of the Queen in Martin Bourboulon’s The Three Musketeers-Part I: D’Artagnan, the first film in his two-part adaptation of Dumas, which releases this Friday in theaters and on-demand.

As in the novel, this is really the story of how the three musketeers became four. Initially, the provincial Charles de Batz de Castelmore D’Artagnan can only secure entry into the King’s military academy, making him a cadet. While pursuing one of the ruffians who attacked him on the road to Paris, D’Artagnan manages to offend Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, all of whom schedule duels with him. Of course, the trio all agree to be each other’s seconds, so all four are together when Richelieu’s guards try to arrest them for dueling. That will be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Soon after D’Artagnan buries the hatchet with the Musketeers (in several of Richelieu’s men), he finds himself racing to save his noble-born new friend from a murder frame-up. It turns out he is the perfect man to do it, because it involves the gang that left him for dead. Of course, their ringleader is literature’s greatest femme fatale, “Milady,” whose boss happens to be the Cardinal.

Her next assignment will be stealing the jeweled necklace Queen Anne gave as a keepsake to her secret English lover, the Duke of Buckingham. To quell the Cardinal’s malicious rumors, the Queen must wear it at the upcoming state wedding of the King’s brother. Fortunately, her servant, Constance Bonacieux, has D’Artagnan’s ear (and his heart), so she can recruit the Musketeers’ assistance.

Screenwriters Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patelliere stay reasonably faithful to Dumas pere, but they add a big climatic battle that looks like it could have been inspired by the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre scene in Queen Margot (also based on a Dumas pere novel). Regardless, they recreate lots of the fighting and scheming that still makes the book fun to read over 150 years after its initial serialization. The swordplay and musketry all look legit, which makes sense, considering French Olympic epee fencer Yannick Borel helped train the cast. (A sabre fencer might have been more appropriate for the props on hand, but Borel’s techniques are surely sound with even a basic foil.)

The casting is also terrific, starting with Vincent Cassel as the steely, righteous-in-a-hardboiled-kind-of-way Athos. Romain Duris is physically perfect as the devout ladies’ man, Aramis, but he has the least screen time out of the four heroes. Pio Marmai is appropriately bear-like as Porthos, without the clownishness shtick the character is often depicted with.

Of course, Eva Green seductive and just generally fab as Milady. Louis Garrel makes Louis XIII surprisingly thoughtful and complex, while Lyna Khoudri’s screen-illuminating charisma is also a real bonus as Bonacieux. Frankly, Francois Civil has his work cut out for him keeping up with his co-stars, but that rather fits his role as the naïve D’Artagnan. Arguably, the only real shortcoming among the ensemble is Eric Ruf not being sufficiently sinister as the dastardly Richelieu.

Alice Winocour’s Proxima

Hopefully, thanks to SpaceX (and no thanks to NASA or the previous administration), American and European astronauts soon won’t have to go to Baikonur to travel into space. Unfortunately, for now, all roads to manned space travel run through Star City and Kazakhstan, so that is where French astronaut Sarah Loreau must go. As a result, she will be forced to spend a great deal of time away from her daughter at an awkward period of her development in Alice Winocour’s French-language production Proxima, which releases digitally this Friday.

It is a coup for Loreau and the French space agency when she is selected as a last-minute replacement for the Proxima mission. Conceived as dry run for a future Mars mission, Proxima will be captained by the American Mike Shannon and piloted by Russian Anton Ocheivsky. They are relatively okay with Loreau joining them, but she chafes at their low expectations. Unfortunately, Loreau’s expedited training schedule and the distraction of her daughter Stella’s angst leave her so exhausted, their concerns are sometimes justified.

Granted, Loreau will return while her daughter is still young, but the film is at its best when capturing the wistful feelings experienced by the astronauts (especially Loreau) during their final days on Earth. Some scenes were indeed filmed on location, but presumably the design team (production designer Florian Sanson and art director Anja Fromm) still had to recreate Star City and the Baikonur Cosmodrome locations, after the fact. Regardless, Proxima really gives viewers a keen sense of place—so much so future astronauts should probably watch the film before traveling there.

On the other hand, Loreau’s long-distance drama with her daughter eventually grows tiresome. Her ex-husband’s ambivalence particularly strains credibility, since as an astrophysicist with the French space program, he should be professionally invested in Loreau’s success (and therefore ought to be acting like more of a team-player).

White Bird in a Blizzard: Gregg Araki Goes Back to the Late 1980s

Tired of movies based on YA tearjerkers and dystopian potboilers? Refreshingly, Laura Kasischke writes novels for grown-ups. As for Gregg Araki, he often makes films about teenagers that only adults are old enough to watch. It might seem like an unlikely combination of sensibilities, but it mostly works in Araki’s adaptation of White Bird in a Blizzard (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

It is the late 1980s, but Eve Connor acts like she just walked out of a Douglas Sirk movie. Rather than dying on the inside, the ostensibly perfect homemaker makes her family miserable, particularly her husband, Brock. Their daughter Kat tries to stay out of the fray, preferring to hang with her hipster outcast friends and hook-up with Phil, her pseudo-boyfriend, who lives across the street. Yet, she still notices her mother’s increasingly erratic behavior in the days leading up to her mysterious disappearance.

Told in retrospect, sort like a sexually charged, had-I-only-known Mary Roberts Rinehart novel, White Bird examines the ways Kat Connor deals with her mother’s absence—a process that definitely includes resentment and denial. Still, certain opportunities come with mystery, such as her semi-regular trysts with the investigating officer, Det. Scieziesciez. He has his own Nancy Grace-like theories regarding her mother’s fate, but she does not want to hear them. Yet, when she returns from her first semester of college, Connor suddenly starts to crave some closure.

Although White Bird is downright restrained compared to Araki’s wickedly entertaining Kaboom and most of his prior films, he is still working with familiar elements, especially the horny teenagers. He also goes for broke with the third acts twists that should satisfy his cult indie fanbase, but it is really a period domestic mystery and works rather well in that context.

It is hard to think of the late 1980s/early 1990s as a period setting, but Araki and the design team capture the era’s look, texture, music, and zeitgeist quite well. Connor’s frequently self-referential narration might take some viewers out of the film, but fans will understand a Gregg Araki joint is the perfect place for knowing sarcasm.

He also has a perfect mouthpiece in Shailene Woodley. Forget about those love-struck teens with cancer, this should be considered her breakout star-vehicle, because she carries the film through sheer verve and attitude. Of course, Eva Green was born to play a hot mess like Eve Connor and she delivers accordingly. Christopher Meloni sneaks up on viewers quite efficaciously as the compliant but tightly wound Brock Connor, but unfortunately, Shiloh Fernandez’s vacuous presence becomes increasingly problematic for Phil from the block.

Instead of an over-the-top bacchanal, White Bird represents quite a richly realized accomplishment of mise-en-scène. Somehow Araki maintains a vibe that is simultaneously nostalgic and insidious, getting some suitably cagey work from his cast. Recommended for fans of subversive mystery-thrillers, White Bird in a Blizzard opens this Friday (10/24) in New York at the Landmark Sunshine.

Penny Dreadful: Victorian London by Night

George Sanders played Dorian Gray for MGM, so he never could have guest-starred in one of Universal’s multi-monster meet-ups. Showtime’s newest series hints at what strange cinema that might have been. It also makes you wonder how anyone survived Victorian London, with its vampires, re-animated corpses, and generally unsanitary living conditions. The former will be the most pressing issue in the first two episodes of writer-creator John Logan’s Penny Dreadful (promo here), which premieres this Sunday.

When a mysterious woman offers American Wild West performer Ethan Chandler some “night work,” he agrees, because she is played by Eva Green. Unfortunately, it turns out turns out she really needs his sharpshooter skills. Vanessa Ives and Sir Malcolm Murray require some back-up when they venture into a vampire’s lair, in search of his long missing daughter. Frustratingly for them, the search will continue, but at least Murray recruits an intense young anatomist to perform all his vampire autopsy needs: Victor Frankenstein.

Needless to say, what Chandler witnesses is a bit unsettling. It is the sort of thing that requires a lot of binge drinking to process in episode two. Proceeding accordingly, Chandler makes the acquaintance of Brona Croft, an Irish working girl, who will soon count Dorian Gray as a client. Since this is premium cable, Gray and his appetites will clearly be supplying most of the sex and nudity quota each week.

Representing a quarter of Dreadful’s initial eight episode run, “Night Work” (currently available online here) and “Séance” are definitely hooky-grabby and absolutely loaded with macabre atmosphere. Helmed with style by J.A. Bayona (director of The Orphanage), they get a lot of mileage from their classic horror tropes. In a few cases, you basically know what is coming, but jump anyway. However, the second episode is further distinguished by the titular séance, which gives Green an opportunity for a massive William Shatner level freak-out. It is not quite at the level of Isabelle Adjani’s supernatural paroxysms in Possession, but that will probably be never be equaled by anybody.

For the most part, Green does her slinky, smarter-than-thou thing and it works like a charm. Timothy Dalton, the criminally underappreciated Bond (after all, Pierce Brosnan succeeded him and we know how that worked out), is appropriately steely as Murray, with a spot of mature dash. While not exactly a naturally strong screen presence, Henry Treadaway’s Frankenstein compensates with plenty of twitchy scenery chewing. Frankly, Josh Harnett broods rather effectively as Chandler, but the jury is still out regarding just what Reeve Carney’s Gray brings to the party. Conversely, even though we hardly meet him in the first two installments, Danny Sapani is clearly poised to become a potential fan favorite as Murray’s imposing majordomo.

It feels like Dreadful will soon be a binge-watching favorite, making good on the unfulfilled promise of the Van Helsing film. With Skyfall’s Sam Mendes on board as executive producer, it has the quality period trappings of BBC historicals, but its heart is closer to late period Hammer films. So far, so good, Penny Dreadful is definitely recommended for vintage horror fans, when it premieres tomorrow (5/11) on Showtime.

School for Scandal: Cracks

When “Miss G” speaks of “her girls” it is always in quite possessive terms. Then a new student arrives and all bets are off. Sort of like The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie with a smidge of Lord of the Flies and the occasional flash of nudity, there is indeed plenty of suggestive melodrama on tap in Jordan (daughter of Ridley) Scott’s Cracks (trailer here), which opens today at the IFC Center.

Miss G’s girls are on the diving team of a remote (presumptively British) boarding school for wealthy but difficult young ladies. They practice regularly, but never compete. However, the red sash they wear allows them to rule the roost. Di Radfield is first among equals, Miss G’s favorite and the de facto head girl. She returns her teacher’s affection several-fold. However, the arrival of the new girl threatens to destabilize their world.

The daughter of Spanish aristocrats, Fiamma is a better diver than Radfield. She has also traveled widely. Miss G is quickly taken with her new charge, but Fiamma recognizes a big fat phony when she sees one. Having none of Miss G’s thinly veiled lesbian overtures, Fiamma inspires mucho jealousy in Radfield. As Miss G’s behavior becomes more erratic, team spirit deteriorates drastically. Tragedy seems inevitable, but at least there is a skinny-dipping scene.

Headfort School in Ireland (Kells, County Meath) is insanely photogenic. It is often more interesting than the girls’ little dramas. Frankly, Miss G never seems believable. Even before Fiamma arrives, the New Age platitudes she drops, like “desire is the most important thing in life,” would even set off alarm bells with a free spirit like Miss Brodie.

If Miss G’s character is a little off, Eva Green is not up to selling it. In fact, she makes her condescending motivational speeches rather cringe-inducing affairs. That might be part of character, but it makes it difficult to credit the fondness her students initially feel for her. However, Juno Temple still manages to scratch out an intriguing arc of character development as Radfield.

A first class production, Cracks boasts some eye-catching period costumes from Allison Byrnes and a classy Merchant-Ivory looking sheen courtesy of cinematographer John Mathieson. Given its striking locales and occasional naughty bits, Cracks is essentially a film to look at rather than think about. Diverting in a half-lurid way, it opens today (3/18) in New York at the IFC Center.