Poll Position: The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)

Last week's poll ran a royal theme, all about Kings and Queens and Emperors. Of all the choices available, you voted the most for us to watch The Man in the Iron Mask, with The Last Emperor just barely missing out with only 1 less vote. I already knew the identity of the man in the mask before seeing this, and the film has been out a long time, so I hope it's not a big deal if I talk about that. Just be warned there will be spoilers later. Hit the jump to hear my thoughts on this continuation of the story of the famous Three Musketeers.


The story is one of treason and conspiracy and a selfish and greedy King. Leonardo DiCaprio plays the King of France, Louis XIV, and all he cares about is himself. His people are starving in the streets and riots are breaking out. Instead of feeding them, he simply shoots the rioters at the gates. Also, upon seeing a beautiful woman who is about to be married to a young soldier named Raoul (Peter Sarsgaard), he has him sent back off to war, to the front lines, just so he can seduce the girl.

The famous Musketeers, Aramis (Jeremy Irons), Porthos (Gérard Depardieu), Athos (John Malkovich) and D'Artagnan (Garbriel Bryne) are now his bodyguards, advisers, and even the head of the royal guard. His attitude and actions have left them detesting him, especially since Raoul is Athos' son, and a few of them decide they've had enough. Aramis has a plan to replace the King, but D'Artagnan refuses to break his oath to the King, forcing the old friends to become enemies.

Something that always gets me on period pieces are the usually elaborate costumes and sets you get to see which really transport you back in time. I just had to mention how great I thought all of that was. Especially getting to see the Musketeers in their full outfits, those were really good.

Older, but still ready for a fight. All for one, and one for all!

I actually wasn't aware that THE Musketeers would be in this movie, so that was a really cool surprise for me to see what became of them after years of service and having gotten older. For the most part I thought the actors portraying them were really good, although I was a little iffy about John Malkovich at the start of the film. For some reason he just wasn't believable to me as a loving father. However, later in the film when he's raging or when he's being more serious instead of acting soft, then he really came into his own. The only sour point is that DiCaprio wasn't as good as I would have liked him to be.

Going into this movie, I already knew the basic plot to replace the King. I also knew the secret of the man in the iron mask. **SPOILERS** It turns out that King Louis has a twin brother! This leads to some interesting scenes in which we have two of Leonardo DiCaprio on the screen at once. A common feat now, but I was curious how it would look coming from 1998. Turns out the effect is done really well, and we even see King Louis circle his twin Phillip at one point and it looked pretty good as far as I could tell.

I liked this movie. It's as simple as that. I like that age of swashbuckling and musketeers and something about it just entertains me to no end. I wish there was maybe a little more sword fighting and really well choreographed fights, but what we got wasn't bad. It's definitely more of a drama than an action movie overall. It wasn't amazing, but it was entertaining and I think it would make a good film to kill time with. Check it out if you like period pieces or anything to do with the Three Musketeers.