Review of The Man in the Iron Mask (1998) by Kai82 — 28 Nov 2021
A solid movie that has its moments but is not mind blowing. The great cast saves it in my eyes. The gold standard for all movie adaptions of „The Man with the Iron Mask“ is the 1977 movie with Richard Chamberlain for me.
While I see this not as failure it never reaches the highs of the better adaptations. While based on the third book of “The three Musketeers” from Alexandre Dumas the man with the iron mask is based on a real life prisoner.
There was a mysterious man who was imprisoned for decades wearing a mask during Louis XIV reign without anyone of his wardens knowing his identity. There is a lot of prove for this and much effort and money was put into securing this man.
A lot of various theories about this mans identity exists. However the iron mask is probably fake as a velvet mask is described. Back to the review. The story is set during the reign of Louis XIV who is called the Sun King.
He is the poster child for a monarch and has his place in history. While he lives a live of extravagance he is also slowly bankrupting the country. There is huge poverty, starvation and riots. From the 4 musketeers only D’Artagnan is remaining as captain but he is also disillusioned of the king.
When he saved the king from an assassination attempt the musketeers unite again as there is more to it than it seems and a secret of the past will be a key. This is the set up for the movie. Like I already said it is not the first movie adaptation of the story.
The story works as it is a classic but it is nowhere near the gold standard. The cast saves this movie from a lower rating. With Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, Leonardo Di Caprio, Gabriel Byrne and Gerard Depardieu you cant go wrong.
I enjoyed their arcs and interactions more than the actual story. The other roles also have good actors and I say the cast is the best asset of the movie. The visuals are really good. I like the costumes, sets and style.
They deliver the atmosphere and era. Overall this is a movie you can watch and will forget it existed. Only by accident I remembered it by reading about another topic. It is not a misfire but also nothing to write home about.
I give a 6/10 because of the great cast and their performance.
This review of The Man in the Iron Mask (1998) was written by Kai82 on 28 Nov 2021.
The Man in the Iron Mask has generally received mixed reviews.
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