Let me take a minute to say that I have not yet read Duma’s The Three Musketeers. But when I heard of the chance to obtain four passes to an advance screening on Saturday morning, I eagerly jumped at the opportunity. Unfortunately I was unable to find three other takers and ended up watching the movie alone. I am glad I did, as I would have been deeply embarrassed to waste two hours of anyone else’s time.
The Three Musketeers, helpfully subtitled “IN 3D”, is clearly not a serious movie. It does not need to be historically accurate. It is exempt from the laws of physics. It is a popcorn movie, and only needs to be reasonably entertaining for two hours. In its latest reincarnation, three disgraced musketeers (Athos, Porthos, and Aramis) and a plucky young recruit (D’Artagnan) unite to save the French throne from a beautiful double agent and her villainous employer.
Sounds like a setup for good swashbuckling fun along the lines of Pirates of the Caribbean, eh? Well, The Three Musketeers has beautiful women with bosoms heaving out of pimped out dresses, and gorgeous men in capes and feather hats and 17th century style leather jackets (leather doublets?). There are swordfights during heists, and heists that use dirigibles, and dirigibles with swordfights on them. Later on a dirigible rams another dirigible and flambés it with a flamethrower. In the movie, they call them “war machines” but I think that “dirigible” is a much more evocative word. I think the whole movie is supposed to suggest “steampunk” but I can’t be entirely sure, nor do I care, because it looks awesome. Yet there is something horribly, horribly wrong with The Three Musketeers that no number of CGI dirigibles can fix.
Let’s start with the protagonist, D’Artagnan, played by Logan Lernan. The filmmakers succeed in portraying the young D’Artagnan as hotheaded and overconfident. Unfortunately, D’Artagnan displays absolutely no character development. Cocky he began, and cocky he remains. He also scores with his designated love interest (played by Gabriella Wilde) before the movie is halfway over. Given how appallingly unidimensional her character is, they totally deserve each other.
None of the supporting characters are quite as irritating, but they occasionally come close. The musketeers are joyless caricatures, and their banter is painful and stilting. Every one of the French King’s scenes made me cringe as much as the color of his puffed pants. Almost everyone else is ineffectively trying to squeeze what they can out of the script, or has given up on the movie altogether. And why not? The script is weak enough to include multiple jokes about bird shit and horse droppings.
By far the most interesting part was watching Orlando Bloom prance around while wearing a goatee and high heels as the villainous Rocheford. Yes, Orlando Bloom. I could feel his enthusiasm for goatees, high heels, and Milla Jovovich as Milady De Winter radiate off the screen. He is the best part of the movie because he is the only one who seems to be having the least bit of fun, and that is why, despite the dirigibles, The Three Musketeers is ultimately a failure.
By the way, The Three Musketeers also ends with the clumsiest sequel hook I’ve ever seen. Ladies and gentlemen, brace yourselves.
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