The Man in the Iron Mask Review

A Dated Review

I've just been watching this film. If i'm completely honest, i don't think i had even heard much about it until the case was handed to me during a discussion with housemates over what film to watch.
What immediatly caught my attention was Leonardo Di Caprio (or Leando Decarro as one non-film watching housemate would call him), and of course anything with him in is generally a decent film. This film was promising double the Di Caprio(again who my housemate thought was just another actor that just looked very similar to him).

It was a good story and had a lot of potential, but i can't help but feel it missed some good opportunities. This film could have contained a bit more action, and the action that was used felt a bit dull, predictable and at times unnecessary. The deaths are few and when they do happen, they are very unconvincing.

Of course, this film isn't about death and violence, if anything, it's more about survival and revenge. The narrative story appears like a good one at first, without giving to much away it follows 3 men rescuing th man in the iron mask and setting out to dethrown their king. The plot is more complex than that, but only in terms of the characters motives. Not that much really happens in this film, and some actions and characters just seem to be placed in the film for as little time as possible with very little emotional coverage to really feel a connection with thier character. One character's death(who i wont reveal) is rather predictable and not that emotional after she gets quite minimal screen time for someone that influences a lot of the early events and emotion.

It was a good film that hit some good notes, but at the same time it missed many opportunities that could have propelled it from a 'good' film to a 'great' film. The acting was superb from all of the main cast, but the smaller roles could have been better cast. Di Caprio does well portraying two very different characters, and i particularly enoyed John Malkovich's performance, he was brilliant.

The cliches got a bit annoying at times, and some of the cheap humour meant that I ended up taking the film a little less seriously than i wanted to, but generally it was enjoyable film to watch and it certainly kept me entertained, and at some points it almost had me off my seat. Cetainly one to watch, if only for the great acting.

7/10

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