Review: 'The Three Musketeers', as written by Alexandre Dumbass

Film: The Three Musketeers (U/A)
Director: Paul WS Anderson
Cast: Logan Lerman, Milla Jovovich, Luke Evans, Ray Stevenson, Juno Temple, Christoph Waltz, Orlando
Bloom , Freddie Fox
Rating: **1/2

In The Three Musketeers, Dumas’s book gets the dressed-up/dumbed-down popcorn blockbuster treatment. The film more or less clings on to the story from the book while upping the ante by ninja-fying the espionage elements and radically steampunking the technology.

Newbie D'Artagnan, though he has the musketeering chops thanks to his dad, must embark upon his first for the glory of France aside Matthew Macfadyen, Luke Evans and Ray Stevenson as the valiant Athos (jilted, surly), Aramis (stealthy, pious) and Porthos (brutish; think a bastard Gallic descendent of Rome’s Titus Pullo) respectively.

So, our heroes, who see their powers curtailed thanks to the influence of Cardinal Richelieu over the weak- minded (but he’s in love so let’s forgive him) King Louis XIII. The cleric wants to assume absolute power by ascending to the throne and is not averse to fermenting, by subtle means, a war with England (represented by the cavalier Duke of Buckingham (Bloom), who in political intrigues and fashions sense is one step ahead of the king) To this end, the cunning Richelieu employs femme fatale Milady de Winter (Jovovich) who cruelly betrayed Athos in an earlier encounter.

The Three Musketeers, admittedly, is achingly beautiful with its breathtakingly resplendent castles, manors and baroque set pieces comprising of mirrored halls and cavernous ballrooms in rather efficient 3D. The problem? Many a time the said architecture conceals security devices worthy of Indiana Jones which a fully bedecked Milady defies in bullet time. With such contrivances, one wonders how the film could be forgiven for being so airheaded.

Definitely not the last in an endless list of adaptations, the film, for all its glamour and fireworks simply doesn’t catch you off guard. May be it could have tried to be a little more novel in less expected ways.

But with Guy Ritchie putting his spin on Sherlock Holmes and the Pirates of the Caribbean films holding a monopoly on all things swashbuckling, the film’s attempts at revisionism does fall flat.

The four musketeers put up a reasonably good show with their camaraderie and ‘one for all’ routine as does Freddie Fox as the young monarch who is oblivious to the fact that he is being played by his trusted advisor.

Waltz was born to play cassocked Machiavelli Cardinal Richelieu to whom the chess board and the map of Europe is one and the same, though concerns arise whether the Austrian will continue to be typecast in villainous roles. Orlando Bloom is as vanilla as ever as the Duke of Buckingham and the role, one that had the potential to be memorable, wasn’t.

All in all, The Three Musketeers is as decent as ludicrous popcorn flicks come. There are some things to be thankful for, like robots or zombies not being in the plot.