Film Reviews

The Three Musketeers (2011)

• Rating:
• Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
• Starring: Logan Lerman
• Details: France/USA/Germany/UK/109mins 12A

An awkward, often silly adaptation of the classic French farce about a young country upstart who goes to the big city to be a Musketeer, but falls afoul of his heroes before eventually endearing himself to everyone; this adaptation falls short of even the bratpack 90s version. Helmer Anderson does his best to force his usual ostentatious style into proceedings, but when he does so, said scenes are inconsistent and sloppily inserted.
Based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas, Logan Lerman is D'Artagnan, a skilled, but cocky youngster in 18th Century France, looking to do some good and cause some trouble. After arriving to Paris and inadvertently impressing The Three Musketeers, he becomes embroiled in a plot to dethrone the pompous, but sweet King. Somehow, Orlando Bloom is involved as a smug English bloke, in cahoots with Christoph Waltz's Cardinal Richelieu and Milla Jovovich's cunning De Winter.
Paul W.S. Anderson actually started out as a solid action director. Mortal Kombat was drivel, but it was fun drivel and is probably still one of the best computer game adaptations (granted that's a low bar). He followed that up with the unsettling Event Horizon, then seemingly became an awful director overnight. Resident Evil was dull, Death Race worse and his last instalment in the 'Resident' series utterly shite. At least he's become consistent, because this is just as bad as his last several films.
On the plus side the three musketeers are fun enough; Evans, Macfadyen and Stevenson deserved more screen time - being that they're the titular characters an all. Instead, Anderson gives us his missus, Milla Jovovich, a bunch of scenes where she gets to look "cool" and attempts to "act". She does neither very well. Speaking of which, Logan Lerman looks and sounds like he hit up regional France by way of The OC - it is ridiculous casting. I'm not saying give the guy a French accent, but surely D'Artagnan shouldn't look like he should be holding a skateboard?
This story was much more fun when all of the main characters were dogs.

Review by Mike Sheridan