and the word not describe only the genre of film but the experience of viewer. because , after you read the book, the expectations are basic glasses for see the adaptation. and, in this case, all is impeccable. the atmosphere, the performances, the fight scenes, Viggo Mortensen who gives the right traits of the lead hero. and the Spain in a special moment of its history. an admirable film for the courage to give a realistic fresco of a time. for the science to explore the details. for impressive message about values and politic and justice and force. and the sparkles of the novel. clear, authentic, convincing. so,an adventure.

Viggo Mortensen stars as the veteran soldier and brawler in this Spanish language adaptation of the novels by Arturo Pérez-Revete. As the film opens Alatriste has been asked by a dying friend to raise his son when he returns from the war. Back in Madrid Alatriste begins to care for young Íñigo Balboa while trying to earn a buck as a hired sword. Quickly things are set in motion as Íñigo spies the girl who will haunt his life and the good captain gets involved with some intrigue that will play out over the next decades.I like what I've read of the first book and my enjoyment of that made me go out and pick up an import DVD of the film. What I had seen prior to actually watching the entire film made me think that this was film that got the look and feel of the novel right. Now that I've seen the entire film I can honestly say that the film looks and feels exactly as I had pictured it my mind. We are in Spain and Flanders and everywhere else in the seventeenth century. This is a gorgeous film to look at.The performances are dead on and everyone seems to inhabit the their roles. Viggo is excellent as Alatriste and I can think of no one who could do it better. He's a wonder to watch in both the dramatic scenes as well as the numerous sword fights and action sequences (which are excellent) The problem is that the script doesn't work. I mean it really doesn't work. Pulling material from several novels there is no plot as such. Things happen, people come and go; and then we're on to the next episode. I kept waiting for things to tie themselves together and they never did. There is no sustained drama, its incidents in the life of Alatriste.The result is what should be emotional high points and hooks just sort of lay there..The romances of Alatriste and his actress paramour (wife of a good friend) appears in fits and starts. The other romance of Inigo and Angélica skips through the tale in such away that nothing is ever resolved and you have no idea what they see in each other.(certainly her early lines about keeping Alatriste alive to raise the boy for some grand plot comes to naught.) We skid through the life and times of the Captain to no clear purpose. It might have helped had the film had the same sort of narration that the novels do, the stories are told from Inigo's point of view, since it might have been used to bridge the many "What am I missing"moments.Who's idea was to do all of the books in one 140 minute movie? It was a major mistake and it makes the entire enterprise feel as though it was three days long. The movie doesn't end it just stops, which kind of makes sense since the movie is so bland and flat there is no way it could ever have a climax since it never builds to anything.(even if the sequences them selves-like the opening attack in and out of the water are mini masterpieces) A major disappointment. I can't recommend this. Its simply too dull to be much more than a sleep aide.4 out of 10 over all.(higher in parts)

I just saw the DVD or a really great film called "Alatriste". I have no idea if it played in theaters in the US or is in DVD release there. My DVD was in in Spanish with Portuguese subtitles.For people who like great old rattling films that still hold up to modern expectations of acting, characterization and scripting, this thing is quite a find. Apparently the most expensive Spanish film ever made, it spares no production values, but doesn't lavish castles and battle extras on us either: it'\s strength is in its toughness and drama.It has an excellent cast, mostly of Spanish actors...top flight in Europe, not known in the US. And Viggo Mortensen in the title role. And if you thought he swash-buckles and gut checked in LOTR, check him out in this one: Alatriste makes Strider look like a schoolboy. And more lives than a cat. Mortensen, it turns out, not only speaks perfect Spanish, but 4-5 other languages. In addition to being a talented poet, painter, and jazz musician. Not that any of that matters when he's coming over the gunwales with a knife in his teeth or lunging in a lost cost while spitting up blood.There are plenty of cloaks and daggers in this sucker. It's set in the Spanish Inquistion, who make the whole Richeliew thing a picnic by comparison. And the court is as corrupt as any ever. All backdrop to the eddy of treachery and abstract virulence that swirls around the life of a remarkable soldier and the boy he swore to raise and protect.In fact, betrayal could be the main them of this thing. Almost everybody in it gets sold out in manner most foul. Noble deeds are rewarded with backstabbing, metaphorical and literal. Courageous love gets trampled into the sewer. And they soldier on while the poets gets jailed, the kid sent to the galleys, the women taken and debased, friends turned against friends then murdered for it.There are two powerful love stories here: Alatriste for an actress and the kid for a future Grandee of Spain. Both get degraded at the hands of the same man. Naturally somebody whose live they saved and fortune they preserved at the cost of their own blood and honor. It's love of the most guarded, dare not even touch, foiled at the last minute, wept over too late kind, mostly. Jerking tears and gut with the same deft hand. Deft, but artless. There are not pretensions about this script. Even though it contains literal poetry, a night at the theater, courtly language by dissembling villains.It's one of those films whose measure is that it just keeps going on and on. You get caught up and keep moving on to different levels and scenarios. Which brings up a point that occurred to me halfway through: it is NOT based on the popular "three act/pyramid climax" model. It moves from one set-up to another like Barry Lyndon or The Three Musketeers or the great picaresque novels.The comparison to Musketeers is an apt one, but it could also be measured by several films that define this genre. By "Three Musketeers" I mean the really great 1973 two-parter with George MacDonald Frazier screenplay and the brooding Oliver Reed. It's definitely in the "down and dirty" mode that film established for sword fights: no nice clashing foils and lace in this baby. You're down in the mud, fighting dirty and choking on your own vomit while getting sold down the river. And Morteson does it with every bit the grim irony Reed brought to Porthos.There are moments reminiscent of The Ten Commandments: not just the galley sequence, but also the scene in the "Hospital for Syphilitics", as good a living end as the leper colony. And handled without the bathos but drenched in a truly moving emotional state.There is a battle to take a ship that would stand up with any pirate movie ever, a battle in the fog and rain that Ridley Scott would die for, drop-dead battlefield cynicism that show up writers like Tarantino to be talented children.There is not idea of "happy ending" here. Everybody you care about comes to a wretched, frustrating end. But there it is: "Death is just the paperwork", like a character says. You see it coming, so you stand up straight, hold your wounds together and try to lift your sword one more time.This is an action film for grownups, a beautiful period film for realists, a romance for the "back to the wall, laughing chance" devotees...a good old time swashbuckler for our own times and sensibilities.

I just watched this movie in London's 3rd Spanish Film Festival.Alatriste is the history of a soldier in the times of Spain's decadence as a world power, the soldier that gives name to the film, played by Vigo Mortensen, is involved in all kind of political intrigues (including assassination plots agains the most unlikely characters) and important battles while at the same time playing surrogate father to a boy, son of a comrade that died in the opening sequence, and getting involved with a beautiful actress (which is also whore to the ruling classes).First the positives. The attention to detail is of high caliber, many scenes build great tension, for example the opening scene is full of imagination and is presented beautifully, the attention to several details of life in that time are humorous without detracting from the main plot.Several of the actors deserve special mention. Ariadna Gil continues demonstrating a great versatility, hopefully this will be the springboard for a wider international carrier, the guy playing Malatesta does so with gusto and most definitively Vigo Mortensen gives gravitas to the main character (unsurprising if one recalls "An history of violence", this guy just keeps getting better).The weak point is most definitively the direction, in a history that spans several decades you need to be very clear where you are going and how you are going to get there, on occasions the narrative is lost, leaving the viewer in the middle of nowhere in relation to a new scene (for example it is not entirely clear why they ambush Alatriste, if he is failing or not in favour with the powers to be, why the wars and the intrigue are taking place, etc.).All gets a bit muddled and confusing, but at least the intentions are good, the craftsmanship of all the involved is impeccable and at the end one leaves satisfied but wishing the director had managed to tell a more internally consistent history.At 2:30 long it may try some people's patience but it is worth the effort in my opinion.