Well, how many times are they going to make The Three Musketeers before they decide to retire the script? Evidentially as many as it takes to provide a fresh fun adventure with a lot of action! Now on Blu-ray/DVD the Alexander Dumas novel written for the screen, especially this one that comes across as a spoof, can prove to be entertaining all over again.
In this version we find young D’Artagnan leaving his farm to join the musketeers. Full of life, proud and ambitious due to extensive training by his musketeer father, he heads for Paris where he intends to join up with the adventurous crew. He arrives in a small town outside Paris and has a run-in with the King’s guards. Not the best outcome, so he high tails it to France’s capital city.
Arriving in Paris D’Artagnan gets in a fight with the kings men and gets rescued by three ex-musketeers Aramis (Luke Evans), Athos (Matthew MacFadyen) and Porthos (Ray Stevenson). Not in the best of spirits since the world is calm and safe, the ex-musketeers don’t have any work for D’Artagnan. When the young King Louis XIII (Freddie Fox) fears his queen (Juno Temple) has been cheating on him and England’s Count Buckingham (Orlando Bloom) pays him an unexpected visit, a ‘war’ starts to brew.
The spoof here does make the film a little different because a lot of nonsense gets written into the script. Teens who love Logan Lerman from the film Percy Jackson & the Olympians will enjoy his performance and the wild and absurd action that’s well choreographed, should give most adults some belly laughs. With flying ships, sparking swords, laser beams, booby-traps, gadgets and gimmicks the film serves up a heaping helping of an unusual 17th Century Europe.
Paul W.S. Anders0n (Resident Evil, Death Race) knows how to get a lot of action going with special effects, live sword fights, elaborate stunts, cannon fire, explosions, and all the things that make a film adventurous. His actor choice, especially MacFadyen, Stevenson and Evans as the mighty three musketeers proves exciting. Although out of place in this film, Milla Jovovich does an amazing job sword fighting in a full-skirted dress, avoiding booby- trapped walls and more. It’s very hard for me to separate her from her performances in Resident Evil, but being Anderson’s the director, I can see why she gets a lot of acrobatic screen time in this film.
There is a downside to the film and that’s the musical soundtrack that murmurs along at a steady pace and adds no excitement to the action sequences. Here’s where Anderson should have gone to school on films like Pirates of the Caribbean with the pounding beat that adds swashbuckling energy and exhilarating explosions. Sound and music makes up at least 50 percent of the experience and unfortunately Anderson fails at least 25%. Add to this an insipid and wasteful performance by Orlando Bloom and the excitement meter goes down even more.
If you can get hold of a 3D copy, have a player and a 3D TV you will probably like this film even more for the explosive special effects.
Bonus Features on Blu-ray Disc:
- Access: Three Musketeers – Get the ultimate insider’s look at The Three Musketeers where you can activate dynamic “scene specific” features including interviews with cast and filmmakers, track the Musketeers’ fighting styles with the Musketeer Fight Meter and more.
- Audio commentary with the filmmakers- turn it on and get even more from the film.
- Deleted Scenes with filmmaker commentary – Find out why they took out the scene.
- Cast & Crew Stories
- 17th Century Action – An action featurette worth watching
Specifications and Additional Film Information Blu-ray Format:
- Cast: Logan Lerman, Orlando Bloom, Milla Jovovich, Matthew MacFadyen, Christoph Waltz, Luke Evans, and Ray Stevenson
- Directed by: Paul W.S. Anderson
- MPAA Rating: PG-13 for scenes of adventure action violence
- Genre: Action, Adventure
- Language: English
- Number of discs: 1
- Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, Dolby Digital
- Video: Color, 1080P High Definition, 2.35:1
- Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish
- Original Theatrical Release Date: October 21, 2011
- Running Time: 1 hr 50 min
- Street Date: March 13, 2012
- Distributed by: Summit Entertainment
FINAL ANALYSIS: A fun film for those in their teens to twenties. [rating=3]
Writer, critic, film editor John Delia, Sr. has been on all sides of the movie business from publications to film making. He has worked as a film critic with ACED Magazine for more than 20 years and other publications for a total of 40 years. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Florida. John is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association and Critics Association of Central Florida Send John a message at jdelia@acedmagazine.com
