Eva Green captivates as a merciless femme fatale in The Three Musketeers: Milady

‘So handsome, yet so stupid.’ So Milady de Winter teases D’Artagnan when they first cross paths in The Three Musketeers: Milady.

Stephen Romei

Eva Green in The Three Musketeers: Milady.

2 min read

1:00PMJune 06, 2024

‘So handsome, yet so stupid.” So Milady de Winter (Eva Green) teases D’Artagnan (Francois Civil) when they first cross paths in The Three Musketeers: Milady.

It’s an exchange that twitches one of the numerous threads in this lavish adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’s 1884 novel. Will Milady, a spy with a licence to kill, and D’Artagnan, a new musketeer, cross swords or cross hearts?

Soon afterwards, they are lip to lip. He tells her his heart belongs to another. She moves her hand southward and whispers “Let the devil take you”.

This movie is part two of a swashbuckling epic directed by Martin Bourboulon and written by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de La Patelliere. I reviewed part one, The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan, on May 11.

Part two opens with a recap, so fear not if you missed the first instalment:

D’Artagnan comes to Paris, meets the three musketeers, Athos (Vincent Cassel), Aramis (Romain Duris) and Porthos (Pio Marmai), falls for Constance (Lyna Khoudri) and falls foul of Milady. The Catholic King Louis XIII (Louis Garrel) is facing a Protestant rebellion and, as ever, the English are causing trouble.

Part two is a direct continuation – there’s no time gap – and has more of everything. More intrigue, more action, more treachery, more tragedy, more romance, more humour.

With France of the cusp of civil war, troops are mobilised, forts are fortified, and this lets French cinematographer Nicolas Bolduc strut his stuff. A scene where a Protestant stronghold is under siege, with musketeers scaling the walls and English ships approaching for good measure, is impressive.

Aside from the recap, here are other things we know: Aramis was married and has a young son. He says he saw his wife hanged. His brother, Benjamin (Gabriel Almaer), is fighting with the Protestants. The Austrian-Spanish French Queen (Vicky Krieps) and the Duke of Buckingham (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd) are in love but have vowed to remain apart. The King’s adviser, Cardinal Richelieu (Eric Ruf), is up to something, as is the King’s brother, Gaston (Julien Frison). Milady is the cardinal’s secret agent.

The main plot line is D’Artagnan trying to find Constance, a maid to the Queen who heard things she shouldn’t have and has disappeared. He is helped and hindered by Milady, who has her own mission: to track down a piece of paper containing the name of the leader of a failed attempt to kill the king.

In the background, the English are coming. It’s heightened drama, but there are nice comic touches, particularly one involving Aramis’s sister, Mathilde (Camille Rutherford), who is a nun and knocked up. Civil is the out and out lead in part two and he grows into the role. Green, a Bond girl in Casino Royale from 2006, is captivating as a merciless femme fatale whose past life is slowly revealed. Milady rides a white horse but she’s no Lady Godiva.

The director brings all of the threads together in a thoroughly entertaining way, while leaving enough doors open at the end to make viewers hope he returns with a third instalment.

In the meantime, the scriptwriters, Delaporte and de La Patelliere, have directed another Dumas adaptation, The Count of Monte Cristo, which will be in cinemas soon. It looks terrific.