Review: The Three Musketeers (2011)

The title characters, in the service of young King Louis of France (Freddie Fox) join Milady De Winter (Milla Jovovich) on some secret mission involving raiding a tomb in Venice (guarded by the very Italian-sounding Til Schweiger) containing Da Vinci’s design for an airship. Unfortunately, none of the Musketeers have heard of Alexandre Dumas and Milady betrays them, in cahoots with the dastardly Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom). The moody Athos (Matthew MacFadyen) is especially cut by this, having been romantically involved with Milady. Sometime later, a young and idealistic D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman, Yank accent and all) comes along, hoping to become a Musketeer. He is dismayed to find the musketeers all but obsolete, and manages to piss off three in particular; Religiously and romantically inclined Aramis (Luke Evans), strongman Porthos (Ray Stevenson), and the aforementioned sour Athos. However, when they catch wind of a nefarious plot designed by Cardinal Richelieu to send France into chaos and the Cardinal in control, D’Artagnan and the Musketeers (plus James Corden’s comical servant Planchet) join together to stop him. Meanwhile, the duplicitous Milady and Buckingham also factor into things, as does the Cardinal’s one-eyed chief henchman Rochefort (Mads Mikkelsen). Juno Temple plays Anne, Gabriella Wilde plays Constance (the love interest for D’Artagnan), and Dexter Fletcher seems to think he’s still on “Press Gang”, playing D’Artagnan’s dad with a Yank accent.

 

Every generation needs their version of “The Three Musketeers”, and since 2001’s “The Musketeer” sucked and was a decade ago, I guess director Paul W. S. Anderson (the underrated “Resident Evil” and “Death Race”, the not awful “Alien vs. Predator”) thought he’d give us another one. Everyone loves the Richard Lester version from the 1970s (“The Four Musketeers” was solid too), but for me, I much prefer the 1948 version with Gene Kelly as D’Artagnan and Vincent Price as Richelieu, and the 1993 Disney version (the plot structure of which this film quite closely resembles) with a ‘Brat Pack’ version of the Musketeers and Tim Curry hamming up a storm as Richelieu. Unfortunately, this 2011 so-called swashbuckling adventure is seriously mediocre and unexciting. At times it plays like a lame-arse TV series, something in the vicinity of “Merlin” or “Hercules: The Mediocre Journeys”. It’s incredibly limp and rather cheap-looking for what is normally a lavishly staged story. The costumes were far from lavish, and hell, the music score by Paul Haslinger sounded cheap and unpersuasive to me too. The cinematography by Glen MacPherson is rather dull and murky at times, when it really ought to have been opulent and lush.

 

Even the major casting and performances are routinely underwhelming. Van Heflin might’ve dragged several scenes down as a morose Athos in the 1948 version, but compared to most of these guys, he’s an A-grade star. Say what you will about the Brat Pack, but at least Charlie Sheen and co had definite screen presence. Instead of Heflin or Kiefer Sutherland (spot-on in the 1993 version) as Athos, we get Matthew MacFadyen. Yeah, the wussy writer from the original (and hilarious) “Death at a Funeral”. Seemingly deepening his voice by about fifty octaves (Is that the right term?), he brings absolutely nothing else to the part. Did he think a deep voice would convey everything necessary? Was he coerced into appearing in the film? Perhaps he’s the only one around who read the crappy script by Alex Litvak (“Predators”) and Andrew Davies (“Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason”). Luke Evans is similarly dull and forgettable as the religiously (yet romantically) inclined Aramis. But he’s miles ahead of the film’s D’Artagnan, Logan Lerman, who is so bad that Chris O’Donnell’s surfer dude-ish take on the character in the Disney version seems like freakin’ Olivier levels of thesping. Seriously, is that Logan Lerman or one of the Jonas brethren? He looks all of 12, and I was worried that Miley Cyrus was going to turn up as Constance. Lerman’s weak performance is, more than anything else, what reminded me of a lame TV series.

 

By default, the best of the actors playing the Musketeers is Ray Stevenson as Porthos. Yes, he’d be better cast as Athos, and yes, he makes Porthos seriously fruity at times (had he just finished touring in “Pirates of Penzance” or something?) but at least he’s lively and clearly having fun. No one else is having fun, including the audience. He’s no Oliver Platt (Porthos in 1993), and almost as limp-wristed as Freddie Fox’s foppish Louis is here, but Stevenson fits the brief to a larger extent than any of the others. He gets a mild pass from me.

 

The rest of the cast is a complete mixed bag, with Mads Mikkelsen, Til Schweiger, Freddie Fox, and James Corden coming off best, Orlando Bloom, Juno Temple and Gabriella Wilde bringing up the rear, and Mila Jovovich and Christoph Waltz somewhere in between. Corden is the film’s scene-stealer, playing nincompoop Planchet in a remarkably Roy Kinnear-esque way, he’s hilarious. Til Schweiger has a barely there role (as a guy named Cagliostro, most assuredly a name of Germanic origin, right?) but is nonetheless very amusing for the amount of time he is on screen. Freddie Fox makes the young King Louis astonishingly punchable, and I guess that’s the point. Mads Mikkelsen is pretty inspired casting as the deadly Rochefort, playing it in the best Christopher Lee tradition of no-nonsense black-heartedness. He’s not in the film enough, however to save it. I also have to question the way the character is written in the latter half of the film. In addition to going against what everyone knows of Rochefort, having him take on D’Artagnan armed with two guns encapsulates everything wrong with the whole film. It’s a swashbuckler with not much swash or buckle, favouring gunpowder instead. What the hell? All the mechanical doohickies throughout the film gave me a “Wild Wild West” feeling. Not a good thing. We later get a real duel between the two but it’s too late, the character (Said to be ‘the Cardinal’s Living Blade’) has been ruined and raped, through no fault of Mr. Mikkelsen.

 

At least Mikkelsen is perfectly cast, though, unlike Orlando Bloom. I’ve always felt Bloom was born to star in a Alexandre Dumas costume spectacle, but unfortunately, he has chosen the wrong version, and The Duke of Buckingham is the absolute wrong role for him to take. He’s terrible, phony, and seemingly doing an impersonation of Rupert Everett for God knows what reason. Perhaps just to amuse himself, knowing how crap the film is. He’s not Rupert Everett, however. Hell, Rupert Everett isn’t even Rupert Everett anymore. What the hell has that guy done to his face? Anyway, Bloom just isn’t convincing being mean. I know Bloom’s probably too old now for the role of D’Artagnan, but he proves himself completely incapable of playing a royal schemer. Juno Temple and the seriously stiff Gabriella Wilde are completely awful as the film’s leading ladies, in addition to looking like toddlers.

 

In between the good and the bad, we have Milla Jovovich as Milady De Winter and Christoph Waltz as Cardinal Richelieu. The former seems like a born failure, the latter seems like a sure thing, but both end up somewhere in between. Jovovich is actually a lot better than you’d think as the duplicitous Milady, the role surprisingly fitting within the actress’ limited range. The problem is that Anderson can’t let go of his “Resident Evil” roots and has far too many scenes of Jovovich playing action heroine. In the role of a villainess. It’s just awkward and groan-inducing, and the role is the biggest change to the oft-told story, beginning with Milady actually aligned with the Musketeers before turning on them. I didn’t mind that aspect, but I really didn’t need Jovovich running away from danger in slow-mo (a dead giveaway to who the director is) or as a wuxia swordswoman. Worst of all is when she, wearing a bustier no less, enacts a 17^th century version of Catherine Zeta-Jones’ laser-trapped heist in “Entrapment”. It’s only a short scene too, making it rather pointless. It’s a very silly role (and given too much emphasis at the expense of everyone else, really), but Jovovich deserves absolutely none of the blame (though her arse isn’t anywhere near as gorgeous as Ms. Zeta-Jones’). Christoph Waltz (who needs to play a Bond villain at some point, surely) makes for a dry and sardonic Cardinal, and is certainly a lot better than Charlton Heston was in the Richard Lester version. However, the role, as written, doesn’t allow him to really sink his teeth in and cut loose (perhaps because the Buckingham and De Winter roles have been beefed up), and Waltz goes for a more subtle approach than most actors have in the part. Worse still, the character’s fate at the end is a complete and total cop-out, like Rochefort, the character has been neutered (I have no idea if this is faithful to the novel and I don’t care). Is Anderson a devout Catholic or something? A cousin to The Pope perhaps? Anyway, Waltz is OK but I expected a lot better than just OK from him.

 

As I said earlier, the film looks cheap and ugly, and in the 2D version I saw, the 3D seams were showing all too evidently. Crowd scenes looked noticeably CGI, and I almost never notice things like that. Meanwhile, why, oh why did the airship have to look like a pirate ship in the air? I know the answer of course, but there should be no answer because it’s fucking stupid. What is this, “Musketeers of the Caribbean”? No, otherwise Bloom would be on the other team! Whoever came up with that idea should be taken out and shot. And for once I’m not really joking, either. Well, maybe a little.

 

Bad movie or just an average one, I really can’t imagine anyone actually liking this film. Even if you’ve never heard of the Musketeers before, it will do nothing for you. Then, who on Earth would be in that category anyway?

 

Rating: C