The Three Musketeers

• 25th Sep 2011

I, like many a critic, am not a fan of the work by Paul W S Anderson. So I went in with fairly lowered expectations of this new flick, an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ fantastic novel. Sadly my expectations were not low enough.

The plot follows roughly to that of the novel; but takes some unbelievably odd turns along the way. The biggest alteration is perhaps the invention of the “Airship.” I don’t recall too many full sized airships in this period (yes actual boats with giant cloud-shaped balloons keeping them afloat.) Clearly Anderson had been playing far too much Final Fantasy and wanted to mix the old with the science fiction.

But back to the plot. Well yes Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz) wants to take over the throne, and plots to do so with the help of the Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom); Milady De Winter (Milla Jovovich) and the captain of his guards Rochefort (Madds Mikkelsen). And it is these villains where much of the problem lays.  Waltz is ok, but Jovovich has been given too large a role; and a few preposterous action scenes with which to do her Resident Evil leaping and lurching shtick in – the most preposterous of which is breaking in to steal the Queen’s jewels. But then she is also married to the director, which may have had something to do with how the role plays out from start to end.

Mikkelsen (who always seems to end up playing the role of guys with one faulty eye at least) is not used enough. He is gone from our screens for too long, and despite looking good – isn’t given enough of a chance to actually be the evil man he clearly is trying to be. Orlando Bloom is perhaps the biggest surprise in this film. In the 10 years that he’s been on the big screen he’s gone from Whispery and floaty; to suddenly prance and camp! The character banner for his character pretty much says it all. Bloom clearly had too much fun making this film, and sadly seems to be taking part in the wrong film. Oddly enough he’d probably fit easier into the 70’s Richard Lester versions.

Speaking of which – it seems a nod to those films that they cast a Roy Kinnear look-alike to play the servant that runs around after the Musketeers. Which leads us onto those men themselves: Ray Stevenson shines as Porthos, and Luke Evans does what he can with the Aramis part. Neither though are given very much to do. The third musketeer, Athos, is a larger part played by Matthew MacFadyen. And yet he plays the role like a man reading from a book he is utterly bored with.

D’Artagnan fares a bit better played by Logan Lerman. The young lads acting is fine as is his skill with a sword. The only issue, which perhaps is not really his fault, is that he looks far too young. Other acting talents perhaps worth mentioning are maybe King Louis (Freddie Fox) himself. Another comic relief role that starts off very annoyingly (really, a bad idea to make the role so unsympathetic), but softens as the film progresses.

Anderson clearly is going for the young teen market, and is trying perhaps for the first time to make this as much of a comedy as possible. There is action sure – and it’s all cut far too quickly, all in protruding, but ineffectual 3D. It’s all a very bloodless affair which is an early indicator as to the crowd the film is aimed at. But it is also so dumb, that any adults in attendance are really going to worry about the quality of film. A rich and beautiful story like this being dumbed down to the extreme is a severity that should have us all worrying for the future of narrative cinema. The fact that Anderson thinks this is what people want is also a worry. Just once it would be nice for him to treat us seriously.

Steven Hurst