The Three Musketeers

Forget everything you know about "The Three Musketeers", accept this story as something else entirely, as something, not all that bright... and you can have a good time. You haven’t seen a film plays this fast and loose with the original material since “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”. That said, the film is enjoyable as a silly and lighthearted action film.
The story begins in 17th century France with young d’Artagnan (Logan Lerman) leaving his hometown village for Paris. He dreams of becoming a Musketeer, one of the fabled swordsmen for whom adventure is a daily routine. When he meets Athos (Matthew Macfadyen), Porthos (Ray Stevenson) and Aramis (Luke Evans) he finds them disgraced and barely making ends meet. After the four men catch the attention of King Louis XIII (Freddie Fox) and his wife, Queen Anne (Juno Temple), the Musketeers discover a sinister plot that threatens to plunge France into war: Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz) is conspiring to frame the Queen by placing some fake love letters from the Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom) into her quarters and placing her diamond necklace on Buckingham’s quarters in England. With Athos’ former lover, Milady de Winter (Milla Jovovich) acting as a double (or is it triple?) agent and conspiracies on all sides, the Musketeers will have to pilot flying airships, evade deadly traps and dodge all sorts of outrageous weaponry to save France.

This movie never attempts to take itself seriously. We’ve got the Musketeers dressing up as ninjas, secret Leonardo da Vinci flying machines, Indiana Jones-style booby traps and technology you know they never even dreamed of in the 17th century all over the place. Is it a complete betrayal of the novel? Yes. In its defense, this also makes it unlike any other interpretation of the story and therefore unpredictable throughout. The insane ahistoricisms aren’t surprises, they're front and center. If you're complaning that it's ridiculous, I dunno what to tell you, there were plenty of warnings.

The best parts of the film are the sequences of action and, in a surprising development from director Paul W. S. Anderson, the characters. We’ve got exciting scenes of sword duels and a terrific flying ship vs. flying ship fight in the sky. At first, it plays out like your standard nautical battle would. The ships fire at each other from the same height. Soon after, they enter a storm and they begin weaving through the clouds, with the Musketeers hiding from their enemy and counterattacking from above. It’s lunacy, with a rotating Gatling-gun cannon, a lot of explosions and the ships beginning to fall closer and closer to the ground below as they battle over the necklace but it's never boring.

When it comes to the people populating this world, they’re a lot of fun too. Freddie Fox as King Louis XIII, I found particularly good. You think the King is just going to be a cartoonish, one-gag character but he’s actually quite likable and has some nice little moments. Each of the three Musketeers is given distinct personalities. They might not be very deep, but we have a ton of characters in this film: d’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, Aramis, Milady, The King, The Queen, d’Artagnan’s romantic interest Constance (Gabrielle Wilde), the Duke of Buckingham, the villainous Captain Rochefort (Mads Mikkelsen) and finally Cardinal Richelieu. Despite this, there’s no way you can confuse who is who and what their objectives are because they are all distinct not only in terms of their looks but in their mannerisms and actions. Christoph Waltz pulls out a pretty solid performance as the villain too. He’s got some great lines (“The wonderful thing about fighting an imaginary opponent, Captain Rochefort, is that he is always greatly skilled yet easily defeated. ”) and makes what could have been a hammy character actually enjoyable to watch.

I’m not saying this is a great film. What I am telling you is that if you give it a shot and keep an open mind, you will have a good time. It's got neat action, a twisty plot and some of the visuals are so crazy you've got to see them. I might be the only one saying this out loud but I wish they would've followed through with their plans to make this obvious "Pirates of the Caribbean"/"Sherlock Holmes" hybrid wannabee into a franchise (the end credits hint at a sequel) It’s loud, it’s dumb, it’s fun and in 3-D it was pretty cool too. “The Three Musketeers” may be Paul W. S. Anderson’s best work. (2-D Version on DVD, May 23, 2014)