The Three Musketeers: Movie Review

The Three Musketeers: Movie Review

The Three Musketeers
Rating: 4/10
Cast: Matthew Macfadyen, Milla Jovovich, Luke Evans, Ray Stevenson, Orlando Bloom, Logan Lerman, Mads Mikkelsen, Christoph Waltz, James Corden
Director: Paul WS Anderson

The latest version of Alexandre Dumas' infamous Musketeers book sees an odd mix of history and fantasy - mixed in with action scenes and lots of things blowing up in 3D.
Logan Lerman is D'Artagnan, a young cocky wannabe Musketeers who leaves his small rural village to head to Paris to join the "All for One, and One for All" band.
Unfortunately though, Porthos, Arames and Athos (Ray Stevenson, Luke Evans and Matthew MacFadyen respectively) are somewhat washed up and obsolete warriors who no longer have a cause to fight for; Athos in particular is the most bitter, as he was betrayed by his love Milady de Winter (Jovovich) during their last outing.
But when Cardinal Richelieu (Waltz) moves to rid the kingdom of the Musketeers and plunge France into a war against the English (led by Orlando Bloom's Duke of Buckingham), the quartet of Musketeers are called into action to save the day...
The Three Musketeers is a somewhat campy, at times, pantomime style and bizarre kind of film. It's an odd mix of fantasy with flying airships being thrown into the story (I'm guessing those weren't historically accurate even if they are apparently based on plans from Leonardo da Vinci) and it's because of these little things that it doesn't quite gel as well as it could have done.
Some of the cast seem to be acting tongue in cheek - MacFadyen seems particularly in on any potential joke with his rather bored delivery - though I don't think anyone told Orlando Bloom, whose Duke of Buckingham appears to be a mix of pantomime villain (minus requisite moustache twirling) and wannabe Johnny Rotten with quite the most bizarre choice of English accent I've heard this year. Logan Lerman, bless him, acts his heart out and is perhaps one of the more earnest of the cast - equally, Christoph Waltz delivers another great character performance, and James Corden takes bumbling comic foil to a new level in the film and provides some pretty basic comic relief.
As an aside, there's such a mix of accents (English, American, German) on display within this film as well - because none of the main actors decides to even try to capture the period detail - which is a shame because the costumes and scenery are a stunning recreation of 17th Century France.

Anderson's brought a mix of explosions, aerial Pirates of the Caribbean style ship wars, destruction and silliness to a bizarrely entertaining odd film. The mix of the ludicrous and at times, Monty Pythonesque levels of humour delivers a mix of the fantastic with the swashbuckling - but ultimately and weirdly, The Three Musketeers may actually end up entertaining some of the younger end as the school holidays continue.