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B-
By Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman
Owen Gleiberman is a film critic for EW

A clunky, overlong, intermittently diverting adaptation of the Alexandre Dumas novel, featuring the shockingly androgynous Leonardo DiCaprio in a dual role. He's Louis XIV, a dastardly noble who lives for the perks of power, and he's Louis' twin brother, Philippe, who has been subjected to a gruesome punishment, imprisoned and encased in an iron mask. The now middle-aged but still valiant Musketeers (John Malkovich, Jeremy Irons, Gerard Depardieu, and Gabriel Byrne), form a plan to rescue Philippe and secretly exchange him for the king. The film is abysmally photographed, and it's full of lazy, anachronistic dialogue, but DiCaprio, a fluid and instinctive actor, puts his best face on a swashbuckling potboiler.


Posted Mar 27, 1998
 

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