Genre Guesstimation – The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)

The idea behind this feature (Genre Guesstimation) is for me to watch a bunch of new movies (or ones that I haven’t seen many times) from the chosen monthly GG genre in order to expand my knowledge of movies within that particular genre.

This month’s genre has been chosen by J-Dub of Dubsism and we will be reviewing our favorite Movies featuring Royalty

Please get me your submissions by the 25th of May by sending them to royaljdub@movierob.net

Try to think out of the box! Great choice J-Dub!

Let’s see if I felt that this movie would be worthy of being in the company of my others favorite movies in the genre of Movies featuring Royalty.…

“I wear the mask. It does not wear me. ” – Phillippe

Number of Times Seen – 1 (1 May 2019)

Brief Synopsis – The Three Musketeers try to devise a plan to free the twin brother of the corrupt French King in order to place him in his rightful place on the Thrown

My Take on it – This is a film that actually surprises me that I never saw it beforehand.

They do a wonderful job of adapting the classic story by Alexandre Dumas and made it so enjoyable to watch unfold.

Really loved the way that this version thoroughly integrates the characters from The Three Musketeers into this story even if it takes place years after the events of the original stories.

Getting to see them aged helped show us how the characters have developed and slightly changed over the years even of their persona from the original story still shine through in al that they say and do.

This film has an amazing cast and they all are excellent in this ensemble story.

John Malkovich, Gerard Depardieu and Jeremy Irons are all great as the Musketeers with Gabrie Byrne doing justice for the character of D’Artagnan.

The stand out among the whole cast tho is Leonardo DiCaprio in the dual role of the King and his twin brother.

He is able to build two very distinct personas for these characters and they seem like completely different people.

The story itself is paced really well and they are able to keep it both intriguing and suspenseful as the story moves along.

This story is filled with lots of political intrigue which helps keep things fascinating as they slowly reveal to both the viewer and the characters new and surprising twists along the way.

Bottom Line – Great adaptation of this classic story by Dumas. Loved the way that they integrate the characters of the The Three Musketeers into the story. Seeing them aged is fine especially since they all still retain much of their personas from when they were younger. The cast of the film is great and they all shine in this ensemble story. DiCaprio is great in the dual role of the King and his brother and is able to keep both persona quite distinct from one another. The story is both intriguing and suspenseful as the action moves along at a really entertaining pace. The political intrigue also works really well in keeping the story fascinating as things are slowly revealed to both us and to the characters themselves because there are lots of nice surprises along the way. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Alexandre Dumas, the author of the book for which this is based, adapted his novel on a historical account of a mysterious prisoner in the Bastille who was forced to wear a leather mask on special occasions for the two years between his imprisonment and subsequent death. The idea that he was a royal lookalike comes from a jest made by the historian Voltaire in the mid 18th century, about 70 years after the historical events. (From IMDB)

Genre Grandeur Worthy? – Comes close. They do a great job presenting this story but it still lacks something that would have made it even better.

Rating – Globe Worthy (8/10)