Sometimes a script can be ok and the lead actor be terrible and yet be saved by the supporting actor or actress can save a movie. Such is the case in The Man in the Iron Mask. Three of the four supporting actors are so strong that they make this movie quite watchable and somewhat entertaining.

King Louis XIV of France, played by Leonardo DiCaprio (The Aviator,) a cruel and heartless young man uses his position to have the young son of Athos, played by John Malkovich (The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy,) sent to battle and subsequently killed because of the King's desire for Athos's son's fiancée. Athos, Porthos, and Aramis devise a plan to replace the King. D'Artagnon, played by Gabriel Byrne (Assault on Precinct 13,) the youngest of the four musketeers refuses to join because he has taken on the role as captain of the Musketeers.

The lead, Leo, coming off of his Titanic movie, does nothing to inspire us to hate Louis. Yes, he acts like an a**hole but still there is no hatred created by the audience. Leo's role is important because not only is he the King, but he also is the King's twin brother that no one but Aramis knows about. The only thing that Leo does to make the two characters different is to make the King arrogant and the brother timid. Ooooo, what acting.

However, Malkovich, Byrne, and Jeremy Irons (Kingdom of Heaven) as Aramis, make the show watchable. They are all strong actors that take the script that is given to them and embrace it. The only one of the four supporting actors that does nothing is Gerard Depardieu (1492.) He is Porthos and he is annoying and his sexual escapades in the show are stupid. He tries to be the comic relief and he is almost as painful as Leo. Malkovich and Irons are funnier as straight guys than is Depardieu.

I enjoyed the music in the movie and it was another saving grace of the movie. Nick Glennie-Smith did the music and it added some sadness and humanity that the script does not have.

There is nothing particularly wrong with the script, it is just not good enough to cover Leo's and Depardieu's weaknesses and enticing enough to ignore them. But it does provide depth to the supporting actors and that is its saving grace. Randall Wallace of Braveheart, wrote and directed the movie. It was his first directing job and it's not horrible except that I sometimes thought that his shot selection was ok. I also was not too fond of the dance sequence in the middle of the movie. But, he did a great job with the final scene and the charge of the musketeers, except having Leo in it.

Overall, go ahead and see the movie and watch three actors have fun. Laugh at Leo while you are at it. He doesn't get better until Gangs of New York.

Brian - the Naked Gun