The Fourth Musketeer

At the behest of his father, young d'Artagnan travels from rural Gascony to Paris, where he becomes embroiled in a devious plot between the King's Musketeers and the Guardsmen of Cardinal Richelieu.

Told by way of a rather denouement-wrecking retrospective, this is a particularly weak development of Alexandre Dumas' exciting "Three Musketeers" story. Jonathan Hansler (he is the "and" in the titles at the start of the film, so expectations for a feast of drama were already pretty low) is an elderly d'Artagnan regaling his tales of derring-do as a youngster to a would-be successor "Philippe" (Nathan McGowran). The arrival in Paris, his introduction to "Porthos", "Aramis" and "Athos" and their perilous rivalry with the guards of Cardinal Richelieu - represented here by his thoroughly un-menacing henchman "Rochefort" (Sean Cronin) and the equally un-intimidating "Milady" (Mollie Hindle) - is all faithful enough to the book, but boy is this a very wordy exercise. The sword play looks like it was choreographed in a sixth form college and I am afraid that handsome as he may be, Matt Ingram-Jones makes even Logan Lerman look good. To give it some dues, it's clearly been produced on a very modest budget, and those taking part do try quite hard; but I am afraid it has college drama project written all over it. This is a great story that should be up for reimagining now and again, but somehow this just won't be one that anyone - including, I dare say, those actually in it, will wish to recall to their grandchildren. Straight to video, as they used to say...