IMHO - The Blog

The Three Musketeers

I made the horrible mistake of watching The Three Musketeers tonight. First of all, my stupid nitpick. I’m very irritated by movies where it’s in a set location and everyone speaks an English accent.  Gladiator and Man in the Iron Mask are two good examples. In The Three Musketeers these are french people in France speak in English accents using English slang. The King, among others, uses phrases like “bloody chaps” several times and he’s not referring to riding a skinned horse. It’s kind of like The Man in the Iron Mask where the only frenchman was Gerard Depardieu, but at least that shows they tried, however little. Something that little can be overlooked if the movie is good enough.  This one wasn’t.  At all.

PREPARE FOR SPOILERS!!

Let’s move on to Athos being a scuba ninja with multi-shot collapsible crossbows. Baffling but ok. Throw in Porthos utilizing Hulk-like strength to tear restraint manacle chains from solid stone walls, Aramis being Renaissance Batman, D’Artagnan acting like a completely unlikable prick, steampunk airships (more on that in a bit), Orlando Bloom looking and acting like a moronic ponce, and overdone, tiresome, trope-ridden, over-the top action sequence directing that came as no surprise once I saw the director was Paul W.S. Anderson (Resident Evil, Death Race, and DOA: Dead or Alive). This movie made me rage on a level I haven’t done since God knows when!

Let’s start with the story itself.  In the original Three Musketeers, D’artagnan was a poor county bumpkin and son of an ex-Musketeer.  On his way into town, he encounters the Comte de Rochefort who insults his horse.  Feeling slighted, he challenges him to a duel and is beaten senseless by Comte’s men. They then steal his letter of introduction (that gets him into The Musketeers and break his sword). During his pursuit of Rochefort, D’artagnan bumps into the titular Musketeers one by one and they challenge him to a duel, which he schedules back-to-back. The story goes on from there.

On the surface, the story seems to follow that bit mostly.  Except there’s no letter that D’artagnan’s trying to retrieve.  He’s just chasing Rochefort for vengeance. As well, HE’S the one challenging the Musketeers to duels.  So instead of being “The Amusing Misadventures of the Poor Young Man’s First Time in the Big City”, it becomes “D’artagnan the Dick”. From this point on, D’artagnan never becomes what I would consider a sympathetic character.  I found no redeeming moments for him.  It’d be like watching a coming-of-age high school football movie where the jock is a complete douche, wedgies the nerd, and then gets the girl (y’know, like real life).  Other character mis-turns are the conversion of Milady from thieving slut to back-flipping, trap dodging, ninja whore.

Not enough? Let’s return to the Airships (think Galleon with a blimp lashed to the top, armed with machine guns, flame throwers, and cannons). These airships made physics their bitch and violated her unapologetic-ally. First, we start with simple physics. As you can see from the banner above, a heavy boat that size could not feasibly be supported by a balloon that small.  As well, when your boat is dangling from beneath a blimp, firing several cannons SHOULD cause it to sway somewhat, but not here. Also, physics would say that blowing holes in the ship itself, leaving the balloon unscathed would cause the whole thing to rise skyward (being somewhat lighter). Nope. It sinks. I guess because the boat has holes. I don’t know.

First I was grumpy about the existence of said airship. Made doubly worse when the Cardinal had one of his own. I rage quit when the end revealed that Orlando “Fop-man” Bloom has a fleet of the damn things.

The worst thing about this abortion of a movie? It’s set up for a sequel. and if Paul W.S. Anderson’s other works are evidence, it’ll get one.

What gets me the most is the whole goddamn point of sending the Musketeers to England was a stealth mission to retrieve an object to prevent war with England and protect the peace treaty that had just been drafted between Orlando Bloom and the King of France. During said mission, they shot at Bloom-ers, killed a bunch of his men, blew a hole in his castle and stole his flying boat. I guess no one bothered to warn the Musketeers that assaulting the Duke of Birmingham, stealing his boat, and blowing holes in his castle are all acts of war, themselves.

So, to sum up.  A watchable popcorn action movie, but if you’re actually looking for an engaging piece of cinema, give it a pass.  It might be better stoned, but I’ve no mind to find out and Milla Jovovich spends the whole movie in almost all Victorian dress, so there’s not even the payoff of Milla side-boobs that the Resident Evil Series had.