(Long Island, N.Y.) You know, I’ve seen worse movies than The Three Musketeers, director Paul W.S. Anderson’s UN-needed, UN-asked for addition to the many, many film adaptations of the classic Alexandre Dumas novel. But even though it’s not the worst example of cinema that I’ve ever seen, if you asked me to describe it in one word, the word that instantly comes to mind is “retarded.” I don’t think that I’ve ever felt the need to use that word in conjunction with other movies that I’ve seen in recent memory, even ones far, far worse than Mr. Anderson’s horrific take on the beloved tale of France’s guardians. Odd.
Perhaps it’s the fact that the name Paul W.S. Anderson has become synonymous with crap movies. Movies that are all style, flash, and rank stupidity and no substance whatsoever. Bad dialogue, big explosions, ridiculously stupid plots, and action scenes so over the top that the ability to suspend disbelief just can’t possibly be invoked…that’s all in a day’s work for Paul W.S. Anderson. The man makes movies you’d expect of a five-year-old.
But, for all of his grade school-level ineptitude, the man did manage to churn out one great movie- 1997’s Event Horizon. Man, I love that movie. But other than that one stroke of near-brilliance, Anderson’s remaining body of work is just pure garbage…garbage that typically attempts to shove his wife Milla Jovovich down the throats of viewers, and The Three Musketeers continues the trend.
If you’ve read Dumas’ novel, forget it; this movie is an altogether different beast. The plot has something to do with The Three Musketeers, dudes who protect and serve the King of France, and their theft of Leonardo da Vinci’s blueprints of “flying war machines” (really, just boats with blimps attached). Athos (Matthew Macfadyen), Porthos (Ray Stevenson) and Aramis (Luke Evans), successfully rip off the plans from da Vinci’s vault with the help of Athos’ girlfriend, Milady de Winter (Milla Jovovich). But, in a SHOCKING twist, Milady is a back-stabbing nogoodnick who betrays the Musketeers and instead gives the blueprints to the evil Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom). For some reason this costs the Musketeers their jobs and they all become drunken sods and losers.
Fast-forward one year, and effeminate pretty-boy D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman) strolls into town hoping to join the Musketeers, not having any idea that they no longer exist. After an amazingly stupid series of coincidences where D’Artagnan manages to bump into, insult, and challenge each of the former Musketeers to a duel, they eventually all join forces and re-form the Musketeers in order to stop the dastardly plots of both the Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom) and French Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz). Idiocy ensures, I fall asleep, the end.
First off, even though I just identified him in the previous paragraph, I must once again point out that Christoph Waltz is in this movie, and that after his acclaimed performance in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds he appears intent upon making everyone forget all about that by accepting the crappiest roles imaginable. Between this movie and the recent Green Hornet flick, Waltz has just about used up all his Inglourious Basterds street cred. Better watch it, Chris!
As for this terrible movie…where shall I begin? The plot that makes little sense? Characters that have the same depth as the paper the script is typed upon? Battles where four men armed with swords easily manage to fight off hundreds of trained soldiers coming at them from every direction? Really, really glaringly bad CG effects everywhere you look (especially the CG water…man, that was awful). Bad acting, bad pacing, and possibly the most awkward part of this movie- an attempt to shoehorn in weird, advanced technology for no good reason. We’re talking rapid-fire crossbows, flying airships, flamethrowers, you name it. All that stuff certainly wasn’t in Dumas’ novel.
So, as a period action film, The Three Musketeers impales itself upon its sword, but as an unintentional comedy, it does have its moments. Milla Jovovich again plays a superwoman as she does in every other movie she stars in, doing hilarious aerial 360 spins through complex webs of razor-sharp wire while wearing this lavish dress that most women could barely walk in, and all to steal the diamonds of the Queen of France for some silly reason. The movie is loaded with humorous, retarded stuff like that.
Look, to wrap this up, all I really need to say is this: if you see the name Paul W.S. Anderson listed in the credits of a film in any capacity whatsoever, run away. Run far away. That is all.
