Movie Report: The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)

Book coverIt has been two years since the boys and I watched the Douglas Fairbanks film The Iron Mask, so I thought it would be a good time to revisit the tale with the more modern (well, to be honest, this film was almost seventy years after the Fairbanks version, so it counts as more modern even though it was twenty-some years ago, old man).

Okay, so how up am I on the Three Musketeers Universe? In addition to watching The Iron Mask, I have mentioned that I read the original novel in 2007 and the tie-in to the 1973/1974 movie versions in 2008 (in addition to seeing the 1973 and 1974 films both in the middle 1990s and probably ten years ago after reading the book). I also have a nice old copy of The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later which I have only picked up and contemplated reading once or twice in the last decade. So pretty good, all things considered.

Apparently, this story comes from the last part of Dumas’ Ten Years Later, although by reading the summary on Wikipedia of the book, I see that it has taken some liberties. “The deux!” you say (keeping with the French theme). Well, yes.

The film takes place after the three musketeers have retired; only D’Artagnon remains in the service as the head of the musketeers. Aramis has become the leader of the Jesuits, a rebellious sect looking out for the hungry. Porthos is pathetic, retired and feeling washed up. Athos has a son, Raoul, who is looking to marry a lovely young woman. The king of France is a bad, bad boy-man whose eye falls upon Raoul’s girl–so the king sends Raoul to the front instead of making him a musketeer (one of the boys commented that it was the story of David and Bathsheba–clever boy to see the allusion!). When Raoul dies, Athos vows revenge on the king and tells D’Artagnon that, if D’Artagnon continues to serve the king, the fourth musketeer will be his enemy as well. Aramis has a plan: There’s a prisoner in an iron mask who looks just like the king–because it’s his twin brother, secretly hidden away from the public eye and then placed in the iron mask in prison when the king ascended. So the three musketeers (Porthos, Athos, and Aramis) plot to put the twin on the throne, and almost get away with it. The big reveal is that D’Artagnon is so loyal to the king because the king (and the twin) are his sons, as he trysted the night away with the Queen when he was the head of her guards.

Spoiler alert: D’Artagnon dies when the king tries to stab his brother, but D’Art steps between, which was the main quibble that my boys had with this film. I don’t think it will spoil my enjoyment of the book, though, as the plot in the book seems to differ quite a bit–it is the third part of a larger book, so some things are hooked into it that the movie disregards completely.

At any rate, a nicely paced adventure film with intrigue, but not of the more modern One Of Us Is The Spy variety. Which was a much more pleasant plot in my humble opinion.

So now the question is, do I continue showing the boys Three Musketeersiana? After all, I do have the 70s versions with Michael York and Charlton Heston. Tune in later to find out!

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