La jeunesse des trois mousquetaires

Aimed at the children's market, this musketeers yarn is good entertainment if you forget history; French pupils,don't you use the "knowledge" you would get from the film for your history test! An F is guaranteed!

The story is vaguely inspired from Dumas with scenes taken by force from Robin Hood (whose inn was seized , not his castle !);it looks like an anachronism : it harks back to the old costume dramas, those of the fifties and sixties,when history was given a rough ride.

The Cardinal De Richelieu was par excellence the vilain of those stories ,including this one, although he really rose to power only in 1624 when the king was 23. A king who married Anne at the early age of 14 (the movie is accurate ) ; the plot may explain (for naive people) the reason why the marriage was not happy from the start : it's not that much dumb after all; in fact,the first wedding night was a nightmare for the young king who returned to conjugal duty only four years later ;Anne D'autriche suffered many miscarriages and it was 1638 (more than 20 years after the wedding) before she gave birth to the Sun King ;the homosexuality of the king was much debated and never proved .

Let's go back to the movie : the kidnapping of the future queen,why not? Sarah-Jane Potts is as attractive as a tomboy as a false grande dame ;and she can teach a lesson or two about war to those dashing young lads ,eager to fight the enemy; humor is not absent ,considering the sad fate of young D'Artagnan's horse !And these musketeers go as far as to knock His Majesty's out ,but for his own good! The script is a bit muddled ,but in an action-packed movie,who cares? Le Père Joseph,who was Richelieu's eminence grise ,briefly appears .

Not a great film ,by a long shot, but enjoyable all the same.