SpecialsTarget
Disturbing yet enthralling
AutCuddly
Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,
Janis
One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.
mjbeasty
It was an okay movie that flowed okay. There weren't too many low action points. It was just rather dragged out. Maybe they should have taken out the second captureand freeing of iron mask. Main thing that bothered me for the first sixty minutes was the different accents and dialects. Leo, the captain, and the three musketeers all have very different accents in "Paris." One out of the 5 was French. And I don't care if they were all mid-western American, but having one semi-french sounding guy makes it obvious that the other are not.Thanks
Wiley Marmot
Beautifully costumed and filmed with a great cast, locations, and set. Unfortunately the script was deliberately written to ruin the preceding, or many of the actors jointly decided to give some of the worst, or the worst performances of their careers. John Malkovich, who I"ve liked in virtually every other role I've seen him in, was particularly bad, with DiCaprio not far behind.Part of the problem with the script is it suffers from a frequent Hollywood ill; Theme Schizophrenia. Am I serious, adult, interesting, complicated, painful as one would think given the movies subject matter and events, ooooooorrrrrrr am I fun and funny while I deal with warfare, betrayal, pain, suffering, rage, death, etc? Treating such serious subjects as fun and funny (which they ARE NOT)usually ends in cartoonish buffoonery ala The A Team. This film is a particularly BAD example of Theme Schizophrenia. Treated as a straight up drama for adults ala Valkyrie or Saving Private Ryan......it may well have worked.
John Brooks
This is just as bad as my title sounds. Just a terrible equation. Cast full of great actors, really all great actors I mean: Jeremy Irons, Depardieu, Gabriel Byrne, Malkovich, DiCaprio... and neither of them can even make this lift above the ground an inch. It's incredibly dull, flat, utterly predictable, tedious... every action scene is like a caricature of an action scene, every dialog a caricature of a dialog, everything is cheap, rushed, from start to finish, the one-liners, the constant stares into the camera/long pauses between lines attempting the dramatic... in many places, if not the whole thing, it looks like a film which screenplay/story was thought out some night by some bored film people who just wanted something to make to merely entertain their then idly bored selves. Really. It's so badly made it's immediately beyond credible and confirms its atrocious global quality throughout. It's a little bit like a joke if you will. Oh, and the plot twists. This is really just one of those films that are so bad they're entertaining.
longcooljolie
Back in the days of Douglas Fairbanks, people took historical drama/adventure movies much more seriously. There was a lot more reading going on and people were more familiar with Dumas' grand epic tales, such as "The Man in the Iron Mask." With this in mind, the director and producers of "Iron Mask" start their movie out slow in getting late 20th century viewers familiar with all the characters. This was the first role for Leonardo DiCaprio post Titanic, and possibly the greatest collection of actors ever assembled to portray the Three Musketeers (Gabriel Byrne, Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, and Gerard Depardieu). Of them all, Gabriel Byrne stands out as D'Artagnan and portrays his fierce loyalty to the wicked King Louis 14 and the Queen Mother with quiet passion. He also looks great in the period costumes, long hair style and thin mustache.Leonardo DiCaprio plays a dual role of both the wicked king and the title character. The plot focuses on a scheme by the Three Musketeers to spring the man in the Iron Mask from prison and replace the evil king with him. The implausible way they do it and install Philippe on the throne gunks up the movie a little at the midpoint. Script rewrite, anyone? On the other hand, the scene where Philippe is unmasked is one of the best in the movie.While some moviegoers (even girls and young women still gaga over Leo from "Titanic") thought that he looked too "girly" in the movie Leo manages to get viewers to hate Louis 14 and love Philippe. And of course the queen mother knows right away and you can see the realization in her eyes (authentic French actress Anne Perillaud plays the role beautifully). Besides that, here's a little-known historical fact: the real King Louis 14 was girly. He used to pluck his facial hair and bloodlet to give his face a more vulnerable, feminine appearance. The Man in the Iron Mask ends satisfyingly and there is even some good swashbuckling action for fans of that sort of thing. Leonardo DiCaprio's image changed radically not long after the movie, when he hooked up with Martin Scorsese for a string of tough guy roles. But he should still be proud of his performance in "Iron Mask" and it is a fine movie.
