The book is a masterpiece, full of court intrigues, affairs and plot twists but you would not know it from this awful adaptation.
I gave it 2 starts - one for each of the main characters and their great on-screen chemistry.
Isabelle Adjani is beautiful and would have made an amazing Queen Margot if it wasn't for the horrible script. Vincent Perez makes a very handsome La Mol.
Visually (and in a superficial way) the movie looks great - the set designs, cinematography etc. They have done a great job of capturing the brutality of St Bartholomew's night. Perhaps a bit too much of it - I know it gave me nightmares the first time I saw it.
Some of the costumes are spectacular - I'm not sure how accurate they are for the time period, but that's besides the point.
This is where all the positives end.
The rest of the film is full of gratuitous nudity, extremely graphic violence and some completely made up bits.
Some of the actors are absolutely terrible. The plot is all over the place - a few brief moments are straight from the book, but almost everything else is made up.
There is no character development.
If you don't know history or you haven't read the book you will be completely confused.
The worst part is that Queen Margot is portrayed as promiscuous and shallow. The scene where she's walking the streets 'looking for a man' was certainly not in the book - in fact the book only contains hints of affairs and leaves the rest to your imagination.
I'm not sure why they didn't just make a faithful adaptation of Dumas' book.
It could have been amazing.
I gave it 2 starts - one for each of the main characters and their great on-screen chemistry.
Isabelle Adjani is beautiful and would have made an amazing Queen Margot if it wasn't for the horrible script. Vincent Perez makes a very handsome La Mol.
Visually (and in a superficial way) the movie looks great - the set designs, cinematography etc. They have done a great job of capturing the brutality of St Bartholomew's night. Perhaps a bit too much of it - I know it gave me nightmares the first time I saw it.
Some of the costumes are spectacular - I'm not sure how accurate they are for the time period, but that's besides the point.
This is where all the positives end.
The rest of the film is full of gratuitous nudity, extremely graphic violence and some completely made up bits.
Some of the actors are absolutely terrible. The plot is all over the place - a few brief moments are straight from the book, but almost everything else is made up.
There is no character development.
If you don't know history or you haven't read the book you will be completely confused.
The worst part is that Queen Margot is portrayed as promiscuous and shallow. The scene where she's walking the streets 'looking for a man' was certainly not in the book - in fact the book only contains hints of affairs and leaves the rest to your imagination.
I'm not sure why they didn't just make a faithful adaptation of Dumas' book.
It could have been amazing.