Return of the Musketeers

York and Reed give strong performances. Finlay is again in great form as well as is Christopher Lee. Howell and Catrall give fine performances but lack the same chemistry as the original cast.

Lester still loves the action-slapstick comedy routine and for the most part it works, but on a lesser scale than the first two. The fight scenes are delivered well enough but this film never gives the same great action/romantic adventure as the others and therefore waarents a three stars. It is good enough to watch once, but unlike the first two, which can be viewed over and over again, never beckens the viewer to return to this movie.

Much of the same energy from these previous films is in this one. There are a few odd moments, and some of the changes from Dumas' original story-line are a bit irritating. But for the most part, Lester hasn't lost in this film his ability to portray slapstick swashbuckle, or his ability for showing how any given situation can evolve to the comically surreal.

Among points to note are Geraldine Chaplin's excellent performance as Anne of Austria, and whose appearance in the film seems less the result of a casting director and more the result of a time machine ... she seems untouched by age.

The film is also colored by the fact that Roy Kinnear - who played Planchet - was killed in an accident during filming. There were a couple of scenes that were obviously meant to include him and in which a double was employed, which makes one sad.

While not the best film you'll ever see, it's quite enjoyable for fans of the first two movies. Admittedly, nostalgia plays a role in my opinions of this movie: it was good to see THIS particular cast once more portray the Four Musketeers.

Most of the surviving characters are back, and the team of Lester and scripter George Macdonald Fraser (the Flashman books) is still capable of hitting a few out of the park. But this film seems, like the musketeers themselves, older and more tired. The jokes aren't quite as zingy, the action not quite as inventive, the score not as propulsive, and the scheming Cardinal Mazarin is no match for Charlton Heston's masterful Richelieu. But "Return" is still a hundred times better than the norm for this genre. Cattrall's villainess is one of the great cinematic female swashbucklers (she could give Xena a run for her dinars), and the film is mainly successful as a rollicking adventure, although the complicated court intrigue is not a very engaging plotline to those not familiar with the French politics of the time. Sadly, it was Roy Kinnear's last movie (he died in a riding accident during filming, and there are some awkward scenes that were shot around his absence), which casts a pall around the project and Lester's normal joie de vivre. But I still rate this highly, and recommend it (now that the price has been lowered). (But why the "R" rating? There is nothing worse in this than in the original films.)