1627, France. A young D’Artagnan (Francois Civil) heads to Paris to join the famous Musketeers and be part of the King’s Guard. On his first day he manages to irk Athos (Vincent Cassel), Aramis (Romain Duris) and Porthos (Pio Marmai) so much that he finds himself facing duels with them consecutively. The four men form a bond and subsequently find themselves trying to foil a plot against the King and Queen (Louis Garrel and Vicky Krieps) from the evil Cardinal Richelieu (Eric Ruf) and his chief spy Milady (Eva Green).

The Three Musketeers must have been made for film and television so many times in so many ways it is hard to count. My major touch points for the plot come from the 1981 animated television series Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds and the 1993 film starring Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Chris O’Donnell and Oliver Platt. This being the case as despite having read and loved Alexandre Dumas’ The Count Of Monte Cristo I have somehow still failed to read The Three Musketeers. My point being that everyone, everywhere will have some knowledge of the plot and a version of the story that they grew up with and have a soft spot for. My touch points may have their flaws, especially the 1993 film, but I know and love them. So it is with great pleasure that I get to say that this new French/German/Belgian/Spanish production is perhaps now my new personal gold standard for the story.

D’Artagnon is only part one of the tale though and leaves us as he fulfils his goal of becoming a Musketeer. So we must hope that the forthcoming part two entitled “Milady” succeeds as well as this edition does and gives us a complete telling of the story at such an accomplished tier.

The film looks sumptuous. The location filming and costuming is superb and you really get a sense of the period. Whilst the choice to make two films gives the creators time to let the plotting have time to breathe. This instalment is 121 mins whilst the as yet unreleased sequel will be 115 mins. Which means we get to see more of the Catholic/Protestant tensions, the Buckingham affair and Milady’s conniving. And gosh darn is Eva Green the perfect manifestation of Milady. As dangerous as she is beautiful.

There are also many dashing action sequences. The duel sequence expands out into a rather fantastic all out battle with the camera switching focus between our four protagonists as they take on Cardinal Richelieu’s men. Whilst a horseback chase along a cliffside left me wringing my hands wondering how close they really were to the edge (if at all).

Which leaves us with the Musketeers themselves, all of whom are thoroughly wonderful with Cassel’s Athos and Civil’s D’Artagnan the stand outs. Cassel brings a wounded nobility to Athos which I hope will feature more in the second part whilst Civil’s D’Artagnan is just the right blend of naivety and arrogance.

Watch this as fast as you can so you can catch Milady in cinemas this December.