The Man in the Iron Mask: Collector’s Edition 4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray Review

THE MOVIE — 3¾/5

Plot Synopsis: The former musketeer Athos (JOHN MALKOVICH) swears vengeance after despotic King Louis XIV (LEONARDO DICAPRIO) causes the death of his son (PETER SARSGAARD). Summoning his old comrades Porthos (GERARD DEPARDIEU) and Aramis (JEREMY IRONS), he hatches a plan to liberate a shackled prisoner rumored to be the king’s twin brother, and then install him on the throne. But the three musketeers must also contend with their old friend D’Artagnan (GABRIEL BYRNE), who has remained in the king’s service.

Quick Hit Review: I’ve heard of The Man in the Iron Mask and knew about this 1998 adaptation but for one reason or another, never had watched the movie before, perhaps because the swashbuckling type of movies aren’t generally appealing (also why I haven’t seen many of the other Musketeer movies either). But color me surprised, this was a pretty damn entertaining movie. While it doesn’t feature some of the strongest acting from Leonardo DiCaprio or John Malkovich, it was mostly saved from a compelling story and fine performances by Jeremy Irons and Gabriele Byrne, with Gerard Depardieu having a hell of a time in a much more of a comedic of the five main roles.

The film was written for the screen and directed by Randall Wallace, likely parlaying his Academy Award win for Braveheart, and it was stylish with the 17th century setting, and although a tad long with its 130-minute running time, still was an enjoyable experience. Strangely, Wallace’s directing career has been limited with only four films to his name, the last coming four years ago. But here, I thought he did some nice work, especially in his directorial debut.

SPECIAL FEATURES – 3¼/5

This release did not come with a slip cover nor, unlike the Blu-ray version released in 2018, is the artwork reversible.

Audio Commentary – Writer/Director Randall Wallace dissects his directorial debut and while not terribly lively, he does provide some very informative information on the production. Probably could’ve used someone else in the room to fill in the dead spots, but still not a bad track.

Interviews:

• Producer Paul Hitchcock (18:41) talks about his involvement in the production and came late into the game while it was filming following the firing of the previous producer (Rene Dupont), which Hitchcock had to do himself as he discovered upon his arrival. Also delves into specifics like the budget, schedule, hot/rainy Paris weather, et al.
• Production Designer Anthony Pratt (8:09) discusses his role in the production, how he came aboard (via the aforementioned Dupont) and his approach to designing the sets.

Featurettes:

• Myth and the Musketeers (7:34) is an archive featurette on the classic characters and their basis from the novels with interviews by scholars.
• Director’s Take (29:11) is a production featurette with behind-the-scenes footage and old interviews with Randall Wallace discussing his directorial debut.
• Original Behind the Scenes Featurette (4:45), made only as advertisement with trailer voice man.
• Alternate Mask Prototypes (2:01) is more or less a gallery showing different versions of the mask with Wallace voicing over on how the final concept was created.

Theatrical Trailer (3:04)

4K VIDEO – 4¾/5, BLU-RAY VIDEO – 4½/5

When the Blu-ray version was released, it was a new transfer from a 4K scan. This go around, the 2160p high-definition picture is a new 2023 4K scan from the 35mm Original Negative and in Dolby Vision as well as HDR. From my memory, the Blu-ray already looked quite good and this one ups it slightly to the next level with nice sharp detail while colors are finely balanced and there were no apparent signs of artifacting or aliasing making for a clean transfer.

AUDIO – 4/5

The disc comes with the choice of either a 5.1 (default) or 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio tracks. The former does sound quite nice providing both clear dialogue levels via the center channel with some decent depth for the soundtrack as well as the more swashbuckling sequences, particularly the scene at the end.

OVERALL — 4¼/5