Review: The Three Musketeers

I wrote this for my student newspaper, and thought I'd give you (yes, all of y- well, you, Roz) all the benefit of my opinion as well. :)

It’s never good when the guy selling you tickets at the cinema casually says, “It’s rubbish, by the way.”

This was particularly disappointing as I’d been looking forward to seeing the swashbuckling adventure with Logan Lerman, Matthew MacFadyen, Luke Evans, Orlando Bloom, Milla Jovovich etc. for months. With a cast list like that, and a story that’s been retold so many times, I didn’t think you could go far wrong.

But…well, you can. At the end of the day, this is pretty much one of your standard expensive Hollywood movies; OTT effects, far-fetched plot, horrendously predictable script, overly-camp acting (of which Orlando Bloom in particular was very guilty). You can sympathise with the try-too-hard acting though; it must be pretty difficult to deliver a good performance with a script this dodgy. At several points in the film, it almost felt like you were playing a game of ‘finish the dialogue’ – every other line was some schmaltzy, predictable cliché about love, honour or courage.

However, that said, I did actually enjoy it. This film knows exactly what it is, and it’s not pretending to be a thought-provoking, intelligent drama – it’s just a fun adventure movie. Visually, it’s pretty spectacular – the sets and costumes all look great, and when the special effects aren’t being ridiculous (flying ships in the seventeenth century…really?), they’re very impressive. There are plenty of pretty faces to look at, and the stunt co-ordination was excellent – usually in five-minute sword-fighting sequences I tune out completely, but something exciting happened every ten seconds in these fights, so they really kept your attention.

Is it going to win Oscars? Definitely no. Would I watch it again? Most likely, yes. It’s not a work of art, but it’s easy to watch, it doesn’t work your brain too hard, and it’s plain old good fun. Also, I really fancy about four of the actors, so I'm slightly biased.

Basic summary: if you’re a fan of swashbuckling, predictable, fun, exciting, cliché remakes with a great cast and a ridiculously far-fetched storyline (which I pretty much am), then you’ll love it. Otherwise, best avoided.

Rating: * * * (good)