MOVIE REVIEWS
The Three Musketeers 3D review
Paul W.S Anderson's big, silly and entertaining retelling of the Dumas story The Three Musketeers won't stay with you, but is an enjoyable romp while it lasts
Paul W.S Anderson’s take on the much-filmed story of The Three Musketeers is very daft, sometimes quite spectacular to look at, and surprisingly enjoyable while it lasts. Granted, you’ll have forgotten all about it in the time it takes to arrive a safe distance away from the warbling pop song played over the end credits, but while you’re in front of it, it’s a fun-enough, expensive -looking caper.
A fair few liberties have been taken with Dumas’ original story so the film can squeak by with a 12A rating, meaning the grisly beheadings, fatal poisonings and regal extra-marital affairs have all had the chop. What we end up with is every bit as silly as the 80s Dogtanian cartoon, with much better lip synch and a lot more spectacle.
The story, which has been picked up, shaken around a bit and put back down again for this modern adaptation, is fairly simple. Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz) plots against the young King of France, using the services of saucy double agent Milady (Milla Jovovich) and a sadistic agent, the Compte de Rochefort.
Meanwhile, the infamous protectors of France known as the three musketeers are disillusioned and disbanded, until they team up with fresh blood D’Artagnan, a country boy and aspiring Musketeer. Young D’Artagnan and his new friends are given the task of retrieving a necklace from England which has been planted, along with fake love letters, in the private chamber of the French King’s rival to implicate the Queen in an affair of which (in this version, anyway) she is innocent.
Cannon firing and sword fights a plenty ensue until eventually rights are wronged and the inevitable sequel is set up. The Three Musketeers has much in common with the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, but essentially misses the Johnny Depp performance which formed that franchise. It moves from set piece to set piece fluently enough, never amazing with originality or vision, but flying through its story apace, and entertaining as it goes.
The script no doubt benefitted from the services of seasoned period screenwriter Andrew Davies [Tipping the Velvet, The Line of Beauty, Brideshead Revisited], though how on earth he ended up attached to something so daft slightly baffles.
Logan Lerman stars as D’Artagnan, the headstrong youth who arrives in Paris with dreams of protecting France and leading a life of derring-do. Unfortunately for the film, Lerman’s a bit of a derring-don’t. He fails to supply the layer of the charm the role needs underneath his character’s cocky arrogance, and comes off like more of a fourth Jonas Brother than a fourth Musketeer, pouting and pretty but ultimately unlikeable. He’s not helped in his romantic scenes by Gabriella Wilde turning in a performance from the Rosie Huntingdon Whiteley School of Stiff Acting as comely paramour Constance.
No matter, because we’ve got Matthew Macfayden doing his best Alan Rickman impression as grumpy Athos, the peerlessly evil Christoph Waltz as Cardinal Richelieu and a surprisingly comic turn from Freddie Fox as fey, insecure teen King Louis XIII.
The cast seem to be having a whale of a time throughout proceedings, sword-fighting, flying Terry Gilliam-style steampunk airships and generally being ridiculous against two miles of green screen fabric. Anderson has gone big on the sumptuous visuals, throwing bucket loads of cash at the screen resulting in a sense of grandeur to the locations, ornate royal costumes and CGI recreations of 17th century Paris.
Then of course there’s the 3D, about which I can rarely think of anything positive to say, but which was at least brightly lit for once, avoiding the crepuscular murk films such as this year’s Fright Night got lost in.
Orlando Bloom and Milla Jovovich both relish the opportunity to go full pantomime as the scurrilous Buckingham and Milady. Bloom camps about like Rik Mayall’s Flash in Blackadder II while Jovovich’s character is no longer just a state-branded felon with a side-line in artful seduction, but a steampunk videogame heroine with gadgets coming out of her bustle. I did warn you it was daft.
And daft it is, but it’s also fun, and the kids in the audience seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves. Particular screaming with laughter came with James Corden’s turn as dumpy, put-upon servant Planchet, a role which would have been offered to Ricky Gervais a few years ago and which Corden gets through cheerily, though like Gervais, he’s a better performer and writer than given credit for here.
All in all then, slight and silly but often spectacular, and you could do a lot worse on a half-term viewing with the kids. Fair warning though, cinemagoers of a certain age will come out humming the Dogtanian theme, so be prepared for days of “One for all and all for one…” muskahound fun should you drop in on this one.
A fair few liberties have been taken with Dumas’ original story so the film can squeak by with a 12A rating, meaning the grisly beheadings, fatal poisonings and regal extra-marital affairs have all had the chop. What we end up with is every bit as silly as the 80s Dogtanian cartoon, with much better lip synch and a lot more spectacle.
The story, which has been picked up, shaken around a bit and put back down again for this modern adaptation, is fairly simple. Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz) plots against the young King of France, using the services of saucy double agent Milady (Milla Jovovich) and a sadistic agent, the Compte de Rochefort.
Meanwhile, the infamous protectors of France known as the three musketeers are disillusioned and disbanded, until they team up with fresh blood D’Artagnan, a country boy and aspiring Musketeer. Young D’Artagnan and his new friends are given the task of retrieving a necklace from England which has been planted, along with fake love letters, in the private chamber of the French King’s rival to implicate the Queen in an affair of which (in this version, anyway) she is innocent.
Cannon firing and sword fights a plenty ensue until eventually rights are wronged and the inevitable sequel is set up. The Three Musketeers has much in common with the first Pirates of the Caribbean film, but essentially misses the Johnny Depp performance which formed that franchise. It moves from set piece to set piece fluently enough, never amazing with originality or vision, but flying through its story apace, and entertaining as it goes.
The script no doubt benefitted from the services of seasoned period screenwriter Andrew Davies [Tipping the Velvet, The Line of Beauty, Brideshead Revisited], though how on earth he ended up attached to something so daft slightly baffles.
Logan Lerman stars as D’Artagnan, the headstrong youth who arrives in Paris with dreams of protecting France and leading a life of derring-do. Unfortunately for the film, Lerman’s a bit of a derring-don’t. He fails to supply the layer of the charm the role needs underneath his character’s cocky arrogance, and comes off like more of a fourth Jonas Brother than a fourth Musketeer, pouting and pretty but ultimately unlikeable. He’s not helped in his romantic scenes by Gabriella Wilde turning in a performance from the Rosie Huntingdon Whiteley School of Stiff Acting as comely paramour Constance.
No matter, because we’ve got Matthew Macfayden doing his best Alan Rickman impression as grumpy Athos, the peerlessly evil Christoph Waltz as Cardinal Richelieu and a surprisingly comic turn from Freddie Fox as fey, insecure teen King Louis XIII.
The cast seem to be having a whale of a time throughout proceedings, sword-fighting, flying Terry Gilliam-style steampunk airships and generally being ridiculous against two miles of green screen fabric. Anderson has gone big on the sumptuous visuals, throwing bucket loads of cash at the screen resulting in a sense of grandeur to the locations, ornate royal costumes and CGI recreations of 17th century Paris.
Then of course there’s the 3D, about which I can rarely think of anything positive to say, but which was at least brightly lit for once, avoiding the crepuscular murk films such as this year’s Fright Night got lost in.
Orlando Bloom and Milla Jovovich both relish the opportunity to go full pantomime as the scurrilous Buckingham and Milady. Bloom camps about like Rik Mayall’s Flash in Blackadder II while Jovovich’s character is no longer just a state-branded felon with a side-line in artful seduction, but a steampunk videogame heroine with gadgets coming out of her bustle. I did warn you it was daft.
And daft it is, but it’s also fun, and the kids in the audience seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves. Particular screaming with laughter came with James Corden’s turn as dumpy, put-upon servant Planchet, a role which would have been offered to Ricky Gervais a few years ago and which Corden gets through cheerily, though like Gervais, he’s a better performer and writer than given credit for here.
All in all then, slight and silly but often spectacular, and you could do a lot worse on a half-term viewing with the kids. Fair warning though, cinemagoers of a certain age will come out humming the Dogtanian theme, so be prepared for days of “One for all and all for one…” muskahound fun should you drop in on this one.
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