The Return of the Musketeers

The Return of the Musketeers takes place twenty years after the series’ last film, The Four Musketeers: Milady’s Revenge.¹ Michael York’s D’Artagnan reunites the group to once again battle France’s enemies, though this time the group finds themselves on opposing sides before uniting to battle Milady de Winter’s daughter, played by Kim Cattrall, and her father, the notorious Rochefort, played by Christopher Lee.

Shot in Toledo, Spain, the production values shine. From the costumes to the authentic locations, the film creates an immersive world that proves its strongest suit. Unfortunately, it’s wasted on a story that struggles to recapture the whimsical adventure tone of its predecessors.

The humor is hit or miss. An early conversation sees the scheming Cardinal Mazarin inform Queen Anne that Oliver Cromwell is set to hang King Charles in England. “Isn’t that my brother-in-law?” she asks.

“Eh—your son’s uncle,” replies Mazarin.

Anne is astonished the English would permit their king to be executed. “The English,” replies Mazarin, “will permit anything except cruelty to horses or a rise in the price of beer.”

This sort of deadpan humor works well, but too often the film resorts to cartoon antics. Another early scene has D’Artagnan perched in a tree, ready to leap onto a passing stage coach à la Wile E. Coyote. Sure enough, as the stage approaches, and D’Artagnan prepares to leap, the tree tips over.

These physical comedy failures are made more awkward by the principals’ advancing age. While Michael York seems game as ever, Richard Chamberlain’s role amounts to a cameo, and Oliver Reed’s health issues necessitated finding creative ways to have him sit for many of his scenes or otherwise be doubled. Even the stalwart Christopher Lee looks tired—a pale shadow of his villainous turn in the prior entry.

That said, age likely wasn’t the only reason for the cast’s torpor. Roy Kinnear, who played Planchet, fell off a horse and died of complications in the hospital during production. Body and voice doubles completed his scenes, leading to several awkward shots where he’s speaking off-camera or shot from afar, or otherwise has his face hidden. Wrote Lee, “Roy’s death spread such a pall of misery that it was surprising the film was ever finished and, in truth, the world would have lost nothing if it hadn’t been.”²

Indeed, while getting the gang back together to adapt Dumas’s Twenty Years After may have seemed like a great idea, the result betrays the realities of aging. Instead of recapturing the prior films’ magic, it proves you’re only young once.