Eva Green as Milady [Ben King]

THE THREE MUSKETEERS: MILADY
Directed by Martin Bourboulon
Certificate: 12a
☆☆☆☆

ALEXANDER Dumas’s sword-swishing creations are constantly re-imagined by film-makers. It could make a film-goer weary and wish for fresh primary sources for derring-do adventures.

But this second instalment of Martin Bourboulon’s series is so enjoyable and so good it shows how Dumas can be done with a modern storytelling twist.

At its heart, this is about D’Artagnan (Francois Civil) searching for his kidnapped love, and the plotting of deadly / sexy assassin Milady (Eva Green) and an attempt to unseat King Louis XIII (Louis Garrel), and to bring English troops to France.

While running someone through with a sword is painfully serious, a lovely vein of humour runs throughout – brotherly love, unexpected pregnancies, and drunken japes adds a layer of jollity.

It looks delicious: every scene is lavish. The costumes are superb – Milady can kill anyone stone dead with a bat of her eyelashes. The Musketeers wear their hats with a panache that should be illegal and at every turn the characters are a feast for the eyes: Vincent Cassell as Athos carries the role with his handsome eyes and gives a sense of a dignity such a crash-bang-wallop of an adventure film might not really deserve.

Then there are the sets and locations. Castles are built like soft-play areas, with levels and slopes and ropes to slide, hang and swing from.

Green is a great sword-wielding superhero, a cat with nine lives who was last spotted falling to her death over a cliff in part one. Here she has bounced back, no worst for wear.

Milady is the hit woman in the employ of Cardinal Richelieu (Eric Ruf).

A breathless beginning sees D’Artagnan’s beau Constance (Lyna Khoudri) kidnapped – so off he goes on the rampage to find her .

Milady is involved, and to add to this, Huguenots holed up at La Rochelle are planning an insurgency, supplied by the Duke of Buckingham.

Who is behind these plots? What does Milady have to do with it? Who is a traitor to the king?

All will be revealed via sword fights, seductions, horse riding and plenty of grandstand speeches.

Alongside D’Artagnan we have the brilliant brotherhood of Athos, Porthos (Pio Marmaï) and Aramis (Romain Duris) and their to-and-fro shows why it is not a surprise that Dumas’s tales are being re-imagined centuries later.

His four wonderful characters are still, after all this time, completely joyful to watch.