Movie Moxie Presents The Three Musketeers 2011

Studio: Constantin Film
MPAA Rating: PG 13
Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Review Rating: 6.5

A re-telling of the classic tale of Alexandre Dumas, where D’Artagnan joins up with the disbanded Musketeers to thwart a female agent and the evil Cardinal Richelieu from taking over France!

Poor Dumas must be turning over in his grave. Admittedly, I loved the Disney version of The Three Musketeers, with Tim Curry as Richelieu, and a
very young Chris O’Donnell as D’Artagnan; it’s almost slapstick comedy and Rebecca DeMornay style intrigue is wonderful. This film, that isn’t.

A DaVinci flying war machine. Ninja-style drop surprises, swordfighting in double bustles (that mysteriously disappear when necessary), cannons and flamethrowers and secret plots oh my! Oh no, is more like it. It’s like they took the original story, tossed out almost everything but the names,
and then said okay, lets modernize it! So let’s see. After a botched attempt to steal DaVinci’s plans for his flying zepplin thingie, the evil Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz) has disbanded the Musketeers, despite the very wet token protest from King Louis (Freddie Fox). MiLady DeWinter, who happens to be a super badass double agent that can fight as well as any man, is played by Milla Jovovich, who really, should go back to Resident Evil for this nonsense. As always, she works for Richelieu, sadly for this incarnation, she really seems to enjoy it. Not only do we have plots to take over France via DaVinci’s flying machine, but we’re going to
ruin the marriage of the King of France by arranging it to look like his wife the Queen is having an affair with the visiting Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom). Uh huh. D’Artagnan and the title Musketeers manage to get together in exactly the same damn way it was in the Disney version – that is, D encounters each of them in some sort of compromising position, challenges each to a duel on the same day, and confronts them all at the same time! Argh! Ray Stevenson, whom I loved as the second Punisher and Titus Pullo in Rome, stars as Porthos, and it would’ve been a great cast
for that character if they had kept the same style of character. They didn’t – Porthos is a dandy, damnit. Matthew MacFayden is Athos, and while I adored the job he did in The Pillars of the Earth, he just looks out of place in this movie. Even Luke Evans, of such things as Robin Hood 2010 and Immortals, as Aramis, isn’t enough to bring our intrepid trio together.

And holy cow, it’s in 3D! No, I didn’t watch it that way – I refuse. The Three Musketeers (that’s another thing, where are the weapons for which our heroes are named?!) doesn’t warrant 3D, or most of the rest of this nonsense frankly. Even the aerial battle over Paris (no I’m not kidding, I
wish I was) can’t save the movie. And I was so looking forward to it, from the trailer!

by

Alicia Glass