King Leo Of The Box Office

THANKS TO ""TITANIC,'' WHICH HAS made Leonardo DiCaprio at this moment the hottest actor in the universe, The Man in the Iron Mask--which offers up two DiCaprios for the price of one--will probably be the first movie to displace ""Titanic's'' 12-week run at the top of the box-office charts. With two books about DiCaprio on the best-seller list, we are in the midst of certified Leo-mania. The swoony symptoms resemble every other great teen-idol craze of the past, with one difference: this heartthrob actually has talent.

That talent isn't seen at its very best, however, in this loose retelling of the Alexandre Dumas classic. Not that he's bad. Just check out how easily he conveys through his eyes the difference between his two characters--the spoiled and treacherous boy-king Louis XIV, and his secret twin, the kind and courageous Philippe. But the more mainstream DiCaprio's choices in roles become, the less interesting he seems. Let's hope the brilliant character actor of ""This Boy's Life'' and ""What's Eating Gilbert Grape'' isn't sacrificed to stardom.

As it turns out, the royal twins are not this movie's true subject. Louis Hayward, who played the dual roles in the 1939 version, and Richard Chamberlain, who played them in 1977, were the swashbuckling centers of those films. DiCaprio's Philippe is more puppet than protagonist, for the heart of writer-director Randall Wallace belongs to his aging musketeers, d'Artagnan (Gabriel Byrne), Athos (John Malkovich), Porthos (Gerard Depardieu) and warrior turned priest Aramis (Jeremy Irons). A kind of 17th-century wild bunch, they are aroused from their middle-aged slumber by outrage at the king's injustice. Led by Aramis, who knows that the king's secret twin is locked up in the Bastille, three of the musketeers attempt to replace the ruler with his benign carbon copy. The fourth--d'Artagnan, captain of the royal guards--stands in their way, for he cannot break his vow of loyalty to the king.

Though this formidable quartet of actors share neither accents nor acting styles, they seem to be having a high old time together. Depardieu, as the lusty Porthos, wallows in the low humor like a pig in search of comic truffles. Irons, less neurasthenic than usual, seems happy to exhibit some extroverted energy. Malkovich, as the vengeful father whose son was killed to satisfy the king's lust for the boy's fiancee (Judith Godreche), has surprising panache, and Byrne cuts a fine, solemn figure as the conflicted d'Artagnan.

""The Man in the Iron Mask'' is pleasant, old-fashioned fun, even if the filmmaking rarely rises above the pedestrian. First-time director Wallace, who wrote ""Braveheart,'' has no real flair for action, and a sense of humor that's more ""Animal House'' than aristocratic. Still, he's a good storyteller and never condescends to his material. But unlike Richard Lester's musketeer movies of the '70s, which put an absurdist spin on Dumas, Wallace's remake is more throwback than reinvention. Perhaps that's what makes it a distinctly late-'90s movie, an era in which we may increasingly find ourselves following ""Titanic's'' everything-old-is-new-again lead.

© 1998