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The Three Musketeers is an oft-retold tale, but never before with Paul W.S Anderson (Alien Vs Predator, Resident Evil) at the helm, the master of trashy and highly profitable action movies. Combine this with a good budget 3D effects and clear franchise attempts and we have a film that includes Leonardo Da Vinci’s flying warships, a Milady (Milla Jovovich) who is some kind of ninja in a dress, and a lot else besides.
The Three Musketeers though are of course still here; D’Artagnan (Logan Leman) can be a little irritating but the rest function rather well. Porthos (Roy Stevenson) is suitably loud and brash, Matthew Mcfadyen is suitably grumpy and entertaining as Athos, whilst Aramis (Luke Evans), whose hobbies seemingly include posing on rooftops and pretending he has come straight out of Assassins Creed, is still perfectly watchable. The problem is that most of the cast are merely watchable as there is nothing particularly special about their performances. Christopher Waltz does his standard intelligent, devious villain, Milla Jovavich kicks ass and James Cordon handles comedy. This is fine, with the only surprise being that Orlando Bloom (Buckingham) is actually quite good as a villain. Yet how does all that and big fantasy warship battles come together? Rather well actually, unless you expected anything of Alexander Dumas’s novel to be intact. Though utterly ridiculous and cliché the plot makes sense and flows nicely. Even if it is nothing special it holds together, which is more than many big budget films nowadays.
Being a Paul W.S Anderson feature, the let’s-get-down-to-the-action sequences work rather well. Being a 12A the blood content is of course zero, but this does not stop the action being well choreographed and rather entertaining, and indeed lots of blood, though typical of the director’s work would be completely out of place here. As for the other elements, the special effects look great, even through the gloom of the unfortunate 3D glasses. Though James Corden is fine the comedy is not great, with the script particularly in the early stages making numerous jokes about defecation, and though I personally do not have problem with it I was surprised how many times the ‘S’ word turns up in a 12A. Yet Musketeers as one might expect is standard when it comes to construction, as it seems like somebody has read a book on how to kick-start a modern blockbuster franchise and gone from there. It’s very nuts-and-bolts stuff, and for all its flying ships does feel like the whole film lacks heart. It’s not about anything in particular and does not do anything special that makes it stand out from the crowd, and seems designed instead to be typical.
That said, at the end of the day, although hardly remarkable the film only lasts 110 minutes, less than many modern blockbusters, and only just begins to outstay its welcome towards the end, and is never particularly dull or disappointing. Therefore, at the end of the day The Three Musketeers is simply good, dumb fun.
See The Three Musketeers at City Screen. See http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/cinema/York_Picturehouse/ for more information
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