Director: Martin Bourboulon
Cast: Francois Civil, Vincent Cassel, Pio Marmai, Romain Duris, Eva Green
Rating: (M)
★★★+
By AMASIO JUTEL
The romping adventure continues ... Milady (Rialto), the second part of Martin Bourboulon’s Three Musketeers revival, dives into a much deeper, more interesting pool with depths far surpassing that of its first entry.
Both a sweeping war epic crossed with a McGuffin-laden political thriller, the film ultimately ends up slightly confused between the two, trying too hard to pull off both manoeuvres to satisfyingly deliver on either.
Where the first film played on the charm of Francois Civil’s D’Artangnan, this instalment is hoisted onto the back of Eva Green’s seductress, Milady, who, among various other double and triple-crossing players, is in a plot to overthrow the crown. Sidelined slightly in the first, and only supporting in the second, Green’s mysterious, deceitful elegance earns her character the film’s title.
Like the first, Milady is a bombastic genre-caper, with energetic action sequences that bounce from one point to the next.
However, where the film falls short is narratively: while Milady makes the dense text somewhat digestible, its many floating parts suffocate the film’s ability to build out the story in a compelling way, jumping from plot point to plot point in a way that only feels shallow.
Pacing and timing are amok — jumping back and forth between nations and across time in a way that feels like the moving pieces are stagnant, waiting in place for D’Artagnan to act on them. The incidents are too incidental, which tapers the real tension in the film.
With its expanded world, heavier political stakes, and increasingly menacing antagonists, Milady has all the necessary pieces to be the better film, yet it misses the mark slightly on its execution.
