It's the early 17th century, and Captain Diego Alatriste is a soldier fighting for King Philip IV of Spain in the second half of The Eighty Years' War. After his friend Lope Balboa is killed in action, Alatriste returns to Madrid and adopts his friend's young son Íñigo Balboa (Unax Ugalde). The film chronicles a series of their adventures over several decades, concluding in the May 1643 Battle of Rocroi.
The film didn't take off at the box office but was nominated for fifteen Goya Awards in 2007, and won Best Production Supervision, Best Art Direction, and Best Costume Design.
Alatriste contains examples of the following tropes:
- Adaptational Badass: The film makes íñigo much more assertive and competent, especially around Angélica, to the point it practically turns the novels on their head and has him seducing her, and also makes him a superb swordsman, even defeating and killing Malatesta with surprising ease. In the novels, it is not even implied that he will be who does the deed.
- Adaptational Deviation:
- Plot points diverge from their literary counterparts to various degrees.
- This version of íñigo becomes explicitly an atheist, while in the book he remains a devout Catholic, if a jaded one.
- Adaptational Heroism:
- The movie makes Angélica basically the Token Good Teammate of the Alquézar lobby. While she is still twisted, unlike her novel self she never participates in any really devious plot, loves Íñigo unambiguously, and is fully sincere about wanting him to make a name and marry her. Her only serious "betrayal" to him is chickening out from eloping with him at the last moment, which she goes to repent to the point of almost becoming suicidal, while in the novels Angélica has actually tried to kill him at least once without a bit of repentance.
- The film has Malatesta, seemingly acting on his own, appearing to protect Alatriste after the latter's last meeting with Bocanegra. He warns Alatriste, lends him a gun, and together they manage to scare away a gang of thugs who were implied to be there to kill Alatriste on Bocanegra's orders. In the novel, Malatesta himself leads the thugs, and it's rather Íñigo who arrives with weapons and saves Alatriste.
- Adaptational Nice Guy:
- This version of Bocanegra, weird and androgynous as it is, is a much more pleasant and soft-spoken fellow, if still a zealot. In the novels, aside from a zealot, he is a borderline insane Large Ham.
- Philip IV's most ridiculous and unsympathetic moments are not adapted.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- The film has íñigo of all people, who parts ways with Alatriste quite early and is on his own for most of the film, become a troubleshooter for the nobility. However, he eventually leaves the business when his plan to elope with Angélica fails and it's Alatriste who has to rescue him, leading them to reconcile.
- In the movie's version of the Yellow Doublet arc, Guadalmedina allies himself with Luis de Alquézar to destroy Alatriste, which never happens in the novel.
- Adaptational Wimp: Quevedo has no fighting scenes in the movie, and his bad health throughout implies he would not be in condition to do so. He seems ready to challenge the Góngora fanboy before being restrained, but the atmosphere rather implies he is being restrained from getting himself killed rather than from killing someone.
- Adaptation Personality Change:
- Partially because the movie uses an adult Íñigo where in the novels he was still a teenager, he is much more assertive, worldly and confident, and actually takes the initiative in his relationship with Angélica. Her duel with Malatesta even implies he has grown to be an Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy.
- Instead of being quiet, cold and twisted as in the novels, Angélica herself is much more open, sincere and caring, and cannot be called evil by any stretch of the word. She still toys with Íñigo at times, but in this version their love is mutual and she pursues a real relationship with him, and is absolutely devastated at it not working out.
- Luis de Alquézar is surprisingly dignified and stoic here instead of the pathetic, cowardly slimeball he is in the novels.
- Quevedo in the novels is a human powerhouse, always proud and lively, and his eccentric antics are used for comic relief pretty often. By contrast, his movie version is dour and somber, and if anything, his presence tends to darken the scenes he is in, which often focus on his bitterness and personal failures.
- Inquisitor Emilio Bocanegra is changed from a hateful madman to a calm and ethereal character of undefined gender.
- Adapted Out: Nothing of the second book, Limpieza de Sangre, made it to the film.
- Artistic License – History:
- The prologue claims that victory at the Eighty Years' War was vital for the survival of the Spanish Empire. Whether the narration is in-universe or not, this is starkly inaccurate. In real life, the Netherlands were too geographically remote to be a national threat, and although it was certainly a rich, developed land, it had barely any weight in Spain's economy (in fact, one of the reasons of the war had been Philip II's attempt to change this via proportional taxes). By the point the film is set, the war to re-conquer the Netherlands had long become a sunken cost effort by the Spanish Habsburgs to reclaim lordship over an inheritance. The Netherlands had been a veritable ulcer that had dragged Spain to war against England, France and parts of Germany for an entire century, and eventually caused the fall of Spain as the leading nation in Europe.
- As a Grandee of Spain, Guadalmedina would have absolutely never served as a mere footsoldier, especially not the kind of light infantry who performed camisados. Due to his rank and nobility status, he would have probably started out as a cavalry officer and climbed up the chain of command almost perfunctorily from there. In fact, placing unexperienced aristocrats automatically in high jobs was exactly one of the reasons of Spain's military decadence at the time the film is set, with Francisco de Melo, the amazingly incompetent Spanish general at Rocroi, being a prime example of it.
- In the film, the Spanish reject the Duke of Enghien's offer of surrendering honorably in Rocroi, and are implied to be annihilated as a consequence. In real life, they accepted and lived another day. In fact, both the offer and the acceptance happened partially because the Spanish were expecting the arrival of reinforcements which would have helped to a possible second round turnaround, although ironically these never arrived because their commanders had assumed the worst and believed Rocroi was completely lost.
- Bittersweet Ending: Spain finally falls loses its supremacy in Europe and becomes impoverished and diminished after so much senseless war against the rest of the world. Alatriste and his comrades die in Rocroi and all of their struggles are All for Nothing. At least, It is implied Íñigo will live to tell their story.
- Bolivian Army Ending: Since it's Historical Fiction, the Spanish are Doomed by Canon to lose the Battle of Rocroi. Alatriste's fate is not known, but it's implied he died, as Arturo Pérez-Reverte confirmed the books will conclude if he ever finishes the series.
- Composite Character: The movie seems to conflate Francisco de Melo with his lieutenant Paul-Bernard de Fontaines, as it has actor Paco Tous playing the leading Spanish officer in Rocroi, presumably Melo, while being carried around in a sedan chair, like Fontaines famously was. Bizarrely, official sources are contradictory about which character is Tous playing — the official website claims he is Melo, while the movie's credits claim he is Fontaines.
- Compressed Adaptation: The movie is mostly a cut-and-paste job of elements from all the books. Which means that unlike in the individual books, which all had interesting plots, we don't actually get a real plot, just a selection of vaguely connected set pieces, as if the movie was a series of illustrations for the novels.
- Gecko Ending: The film surpasses well the novel series at that point and goes to portray its very ending, although one which had been already implied in the books' Framing Device.
- The Ghost:
- While Ambrogio Spinola gets to have one scene aside from several mentions, Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand never appears onscreen and is already dead and replaced by Francisco de Melo by the time we return to the battlefields.
- From the opposing side, the Duke of Enghien is also never seen in person. Same for Cardinal Richelieu.
- Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: With the exception of Bragado, all the named characters are bareheaded in the Battle of Rocroi, while most other Spanish arquebusiers in their wing retain their custom hats.
- Homage Shot: In the movie, the scene of the surrender of Breda is modelled after Velazquez's famous painting.
- Made of Iron: The worn Alatriste is cut down and given a finishing blow by Malatesta, yet he goes to survive both things.
- A Thicket of Spears: The final battle of the film depicts a pretty accurate reproduction of the tercio formation working as they would have during the age of Pike and Shot, showcasing both the protection it gave to the Spanish soldiers against cavalry charges and the dreaded push of pike that happened when a pike formation attempted to dislodge another.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Silently lampshaded when Guadalmedina throws his dagger, in a hilariously lazy fashion, as a last act of defiance against a Dutch soldier. Much to his visible surprise, the dagger hits perfectly and kills the enemy.
- The Voiceless: King Philip has no audible lines.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: Viggo Mortensen plays Alatriste with an indefinable accent, product of him having originally learned Spanish in Argentina and trying not to slip on an Argentine accent.
- Worf Had the Flu: Malatesta defeats Alatriste by appearing healthy and fresh to duel him after Alatriste is worn down from fighting Saldaña and Guadalmedina.
