Now Playing: The Three Musketeers in 3D (2011)

Today some friends stopped by who wanted to go see The Three Musketeers in 3D directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. Its main starring roles are filled by some slightly lesser known, but refreshing faces Matthew Macfadyen, Luke Evans and Logan Lerman. But it also has some more recognizable faces in Ray Stevenson, Orlando Bloom, and Milla Jovovich. It's no surprise to see Jovovich here though, considering she's married to the director, and appears in nearly every movie he makes as the leading lady. Ever hear of Resident Evil? Guess who directed it... But this is about those famous Musketeers! Is it worth the cash to see it in the theater? What about the 3D? All that and more right after the jump!


"All for one, and one for all!"

It's their famous battle cry declaring their loyalty and willingness to do anything for their King. I've always been a bit of a fan of the Musketeers, and because of it I quite liked The Man in the Iron Mask which I watched back in June. While that film looked at the Musketeers towards the end of their lives, this new film is yet another retelling of when the famous three first meet their fourth in the very young D'Artagnan. It's not all fun and games however.

The Musketeers have recently been let go from their service to the new King of France, Louis the XIII. It's not his doing however. It has been done under the recommendations of Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz) who is putting together his own army to serve the King. This puts the Musketeers down on their luck, running out of money, and hoping there is some way they can still serve their young King. They'll have their chance soon enough, but it won't be easy, what with spies, regicide plots, flying war machines, and lots of good ol' swashbuckling ahead of them!

Athos, D'Artagnan, Porthos, and Aramis walk the streets of France

Part of me really wanted to enjoy this movie. Most likely the part that loves this era in general, which, in my brain, also encompasses Don Quixote stories, and Assassin's Creed 2/Brotherhood. I also love the idea that Leonardo DaVinci made all kinds of super advanced clockwork mechanisms far beyond their time, and that his flying machines could actually work. This movie promised to take all of that and mash it head first into the world of The Three Musketeers of whom I'm a previously stated fan.

While I know that the story of The Three Musketeers is fictional, it at least seems to have be grounded in some sort of realism. Unknown heroes whose secret exploits for the King disappeared over time. For this new movie to win me over, even though it has impossible air ships, it would all have to be kept secret. So long as it was all possible to be covered up, or basically that the general public could never find out about the air ship, I would have been able to accept the story as yet another impossible fantasy that could have really happened. Unfortunately, without going into plot details, this is not the case, and basically the movie brashly alters reality, leaving any grasp of real history far behind it. It's this alteration to what could only be an alternate universe, that pushed the story into realms that my brain no longer enjoyed.

Milady de Winter (Milla Jovovich) & the Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom) plot and scheme

Even though I complain, it was really only towards the end that it started to become too much of a stretch for me. Up until that point I was really enjoying all the Musketeering and sword fighting. There are plenty of scenes of grand sword fights and very well choreographed swashbuckling. And I do love me some swashbuckling! The Leonardo Da Vinci stuff was cool, but sadly the CG special effects lacked.

The acting was well and good. Even Jovovich was fun to watch! But in particular I really liked the choices of actors for the Musketeers. Matthew Macfadyen as Athos, Ray Stevenson as Porthos, and Luke Evans as Aramis were all great! Logan Lerman as the young D'Artagnan was adequate, but whatever scene he was in seemed to be stolen by nearly anyone else who was with him, and that's really not good since he's supposedly the main character. Orlando Bloom was maybe a bit too over the top, and Christoph Waltz was just sort of playing a lesser version of his role in Inglourious Basterds. Instead, I wish they had spent more time building on the character of Cagliostro played by Til Schweiger. I liked him because he was like a dark version of the Musketeers with an eye-patch! Sadly he had basically no depth to him. Overall though, no one was actually bad. Some were just better than others.

Actually, there was another thing that threw me off right at the beginning, and that was D'Artagnan pulling the lines straight from A Fistful of Dollars when demanding that Cagliostro apologize to his horse. My friend thinks this might actually be originally from the Three Musketeers book, but I'm not sure. For me, it just seemed like they were ripping off that old Clint Eastwood movie. I would like to know what the truth is though.

All the sword fighting was really good in my opinion, and there was LOTS of it!

Before I end this, I should mention the 3D, as that was the only thing playing at my theater. Thankfully The Three Musketeers in 3D was actually shot in 3D with Alexa cameras. The 3D was quite smooth, clean, and added a realistic looking depth to the scenes. There were very few gimmicky 3D effects of things flying out of the screen, instead it was used fairly subtly, which I would never have expected from a Paul W.S. Anderson film. All in all, not a total waste of money.

However, even though the 3D worked nicely, I'm not sure I would recommend this as a movie you absolutely need to see in the theaters. This time though, it was because the historical story went totally off the rails and basically broke history, spitting on the shattered time-line of the world, after grinding the heel of its boot on it. It's unfortunate too, because the costumes, settings, locations, acting and action scenes were all really good. I think I could still recommend this if it popped up on Netflix down the road as a fun, turn your brain off movie. Skip the theater experience and save your money, unless you really love 3D but don't have a 3D TV. It's just a lot of money to ask for a movie whose story simply falls apart, and drools all over itself.