3 MUSKETEERS IN 3D - MOVIE REVIEW

The Three Musketeers: 3D (M) 3 stars
Milla Jovovich, Orlando Bloom, Christoph Waltz, Luke Evans, Matthew Macfadyen, Ray Stevenson
Director Paul W.S. Anderson

You'll like this if you liked Pirates of the Caribbean, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Man in the Iron Mask, The Mask of Zorro, Wild Wild West

The Three Stooges. Three Amigos. Three Men and a Baby or its sequel, Three Men and a Bride. These are three-manned movies I'd rather see than another Three Musketeers movie.

There hasn't been one since Charlie Sheen and Kiefer Sutherland donned the feathered hats in the 1993 film, and there hasn't been one better than the 1973 version starring Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain and Raquel Welch. That might suggest the time is right for a clever re-invention of the old-fashioned swashbuckler. But in the age of superhero blockbusters, 3D and digital animation, another musketeer movie filled with daring swordplay and pompous wordplay seems like a quaint time warp.

But swash my buckles! This surprisingly enjoyable update is as handsome as it is empty-headed, and it knows it, never taking itself too seriously and almost winking at the camera at how absurd it all is.
Even the Three Musketeers themselves would blush at how action movie director Paul W.S.

Anderson swindled a whopping $75 million to bring the three plumed swashbucklers back from the dead. But back they are - looking resplendent in 3D - in this bright, colourful, higher-tech and action-packed act of British lunacy.

After being double-crossed by the beautiful Milady (Milla Jovovich), our three washed-up heroes (Luke Evans, Matthew Macfadyen, Ray Stevenson) team up with the cocky young D'Artagnan (Logan Lerman) to stop her and her employers from seizing the French throne.

Anderson has directed some of the trashier action films of the decade but he knows how to shoot a solid action scene and brings some polished, inventive sequences to proceedings here. A giant sailing warship becomes a flying hot-air balloon galleon.

Anderson spends much of his $75 million on these crazy sequences. There's some creative use of weaponry too. Yet he also spends plenty of money on the costumes, sets and CG effects, with big palaces, decadent rooms and backgrounds all created in the computer.

It all makes this Musketeer effort look and play like a Pirates of the Caribbean movie, especially with the sailing ship and with Pirates star Orlando Bloom sporting an Elvis quiff/mullet as the dastardly Duke of Buckingham. He resembles a Renaissance peacock with a goatee and sideburns - and he still can't act.

Still, it's good to see nerdy British actor Matthew Macfadyen headbutting bad guys as Athos and Ray Stevenson bringing a bit of Little John to Porthos. But is Christoph Waltz the new John Malkovich? He not only bears a striking resemblance but ever since he won the Oscar for Inglourious Basterds, he's playing the same kind of snivelling, bad-guy freaks, and hams it up as a slippery Cardinal here.

Yet The Three Musketeers is inventive, whimsical, camera-winking fun. It's the type of big dumb action movie where hundreds of armed henchmen surround the good guys and the villain says "finish them off" and leaves, assuming the job is done. You can guess what happens next, and you may roll your eyes at all the cliches, but I think you'll leave with a smile.