The Three Musketeers is a classical story of friendship and honor. It’s been the base of many an adaptation, the story being retold again and again, so that it lives on. Or perhaps it’s limping on at this point, as contemporary Hollywood and director Paul W. S. Anderson (of Resident Evil ‘fame’) have gotten their grubby mitts on it and turned it into a cliché action flick.

Those fans of the Three Musketeers with anger management issues will want to leave now.

The opening of the movie sees Athos (Matthew Macfadyen), Porthos (Ray Stevenson) and Aramis (Luke Evans), and Athos’s lover Milady De Winter (Milla Jovovich) executing a plan to steal valuable blueprints made by Leonardo Da Vinci from an underground vault in Venice. If that sounds implausible, it’s easily explained by how the three musketeers are renaissance-era super spies now. It plays out like Mission Impossible and the blueprints are quickly spirited out of the vault. The four celebrate afterwards… and are interrupted by Milday betraying and poisoning them, and the entrance of one of the villains, the Duke of Buckingham.

Orlando Bloom playing the charismatic, smug bastard that is the Duke to the hilt.

After a few stinging taunts to the heroes and the classic mistake of leaving them alive, he takes the blueprints and absconds with Milady. The musketeers are disbanded by Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz) upon their return for their failure, and are generally in a bad row. The scene then shifts from the prologue to the introduction of our last protagonist, D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman), as the plot settles in to (vaguely) follow that of the original once again.

‘Vaguely’ because I don’t think they had dirigibles back then.

To be honest it’s a surprise they can even fit in a plot between all the action sequences, explosions (yes, they manage to squeeze them in), and corny lines that are the trappings of action movies today. The story is handled with the subtly of a club, and the success of the heroes seems to depend overly much on luck saving them in the nick of time. D’Artagnan in particular plays to the current trend of the cocky, young white male adult with the American accent that bumbles his way into life-threatening situations and only escapes because of fortunately timed coincidence. The dirty-fighting second of command to the Cardinal, Captain Rochefort (Mads Mikkelsen) is easily the most skilled-seeming fighter of the named characters; in good part because he’s the only one to ever use a gun.

Not that it stops the named characters from mowing through mooks and redshirts like a hot knife through butter. Those familiar with the original story or an earlier adaptation will recall the scene where D’Artagnan is set to duel all three musketeers, and the Cardinal’s guards attempt to arrest them for illegal dueling. The heroes prevail despite being outnumbered and wander off into the sunset. A similar scene occurs in the movie, with the small change of being outnumbered about 50-to-1 by a few platoons of guards appearing out of nowhere to line the set. What follows is a few minutes of gratuitous slow-mo action, flynning (thank you Tv-Tropes), and the heroes (including the supposed ‘newbie’ of D’Artagnan) generally mowing them down by the dozen without suffering so much as a scratch.

Even afterwards the film goes on to continue to demonstrate that if you don’t have a name you have all the importance of a cardboard cutout present only to be killed by whomever the director wants to look badass at the moment. This spirit even spreads into the story, as after the aforementioned scene and decorating the set with corpses, they go before King Louis XIII (Freddie Fox). The Cardinal informs him of their crime, and presses for them to be punished. King Louis gives it some thought, seems about to pronounce judgment… Before meandering off on a tangent about how drably they’re dressed and ordering that they get better clothes. Cardinal Richelieu simmers helplessly in the background, much to the amusement of our heroes. And no, this particular series of scenes isn’t the only example of these issues.

While it seems like I may be focusing too much on ripping apart what little plot there is, it’s really hard to say much more about the film. The action is the stereotypical over-the-top fare pigeonholed into a historical France given enough steampunk elements to make it fit. The only characters done with any degree of drama and seriousness are Athos and Rochefort, as everyone else plays up their parts for as much light-hearted fun as they can. The movie ends with precisely one main character death, with another brought back from the dead in an obvious sequel hook of a stinger.

Final Call: Overall about the only thing Three Musketeers seems to do is define mediocrity and the stereotype for contemporary action films. There are a few enjoyable moments and its good fun to watch, but it has all the depth of a puddle and you’ve gotten everything you’re going to get from it after one viewing. If you’re in the mood for a few hours of mindless one-liners and bombastic set pieces, give it a try… But personally, I wouldn’t suggest contributing to their bottom line; if it scrapes in enough they might make-do on the threat of a sequel and inflict the world with further butchering of Dumas’s works.

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