Review of Captain Alatriste: The Spanish Musketeer (2006) by Peter E — 05 Oct 2007

There's a bit in "Tristram Shandy - A Cock and Bull Story" where they're viewing the dailies of their expensive battle-scene and a character comments in a very MST3K manner "Here go the olympic pole-vaulting team" at the pike-men and "Oh look, I'm commanding a massive ten men" or something to that effect.

What does this have to do with the film in question? Well, it's just that for The Most Expensive Spanish Film Ever (tm), the climactic field-battle scenes are a bit amateurish. Nice to see them not relying entirely on CGI, but when there's a grand total of some forty costumed and armed extras portraying one of the Spanish tercios that swept Flanders and that the author describes so grandly and lovingly in his novels, the handful of extras just doesn't do it justice. When framed tightly amongst the spectacularly bearded and sweaty Hispanic faces and their pikes and arquebuses it looks alright. But then they pan out and show a wide shot where there's only this small tercio of men standing, covering a fourth of the frame, as if they were planning on adding more via motion control takes (as in Gladiator's opening battle) or CGI, but their budget ran out. With movies like this, you come for the spectacle. And when the film in question comes with Spain's biggest price-tag, one can't help but feel a bit disappointed at. Especially when a bit earlier there is a beautiful shot of a fleet of galleys landing Spanish troops on the shore.

Otherwise the film is a fine effort. Viggo carries the film with a charismatic performance. The swashbuckling duels are very vicious, and the action is brutal and convincing enough when kept on a small scale (as in the opening skirmish). Also, condensing the plots of many novels into one film makes the plot-line a bit patchy.

Still worth seeing, especially for Viggo Mortensen fans or fans of the books.