The
Three Musketeers
Rated R. Our Ratings: V-4 ;L -5 ; S/N –1.
Running time: 1 hour 50 min.
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What is a mere 40 soldiers against our 4 heroes? © 2011Summit Entertainment |
Why do you boast, O mighty one,
of mischief done against the godly?
All day long2 you are plotting destruction.
Your tongue is like a sharp razor,
you worker of treachery.
Psalm 52:1
Two are better than one, because they have a good reward
for their toil. 10 For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but
woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another
to help
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
Of the four versions of Alexander Duma’s classic adventure
tale readily available (3 on DVD), Paul W. S.
Anderson’s will seem the most outlandish to lovers of the book or the
earlier version. He and his
scriptwriters have done to (or “for” admirers of the film contend)
Dumas what the makers of the new Sherlock Holmes films have done to Conan
Doyle, jazzed the story up with James Bond-like gadgetry, probably in an
attempt to lure away young adults from their video games.
The film starts out in Venice where the Three Musketeers Athos (Matthew Macfadyen),
Porthos (Ray Stevenson) and Aramis (Luke Evans) are working with Athos’ lover,
Milady de Winter (Milla Jovovich), in an elaborate heist to steal the plans
of Leonardo da Vinci’s airship. However, Milady double crosses them,
making off with the plans and giving them to England’s Duke of Buckingham
(Orlando Bloom). Angered by their failure, Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph
Waltz) disbands the group. Jump to a year later when D’Artagnan (Logan
Lerman), son of a musketeer, sets off to find the Three and become one of
them. There are the familiar misunderstandings with the youth winding up
in back to back duels with the three (whom he does not recognize as the friends
of his father), and the arrival of over 40 of the Cardinal’s men bent
upon arresting the four for violating the ban on public dueling. Only 40?
Hardly favorable odds for the heroes of this fantasy.
I have no intention of describing the complex story further except to mention
that the airships are indeed built, our heroes stealing the one made by the
Duke of Buckingham and then becoming engaged in an aerial battle with one
built by the Cardinal. The special effects are indeed spectacular, especially
when the two cripple airships land atop the Cathedral of Notre Dame. This
then is a version for those who judge movies by the amount of spectacular
action. But so much is lost when this is the focus: in the earlier versions
we feel the pathos of Athos at being betrayed by the woman whom he loves,
and the scene in which they part forever is especially touching (my favorite
is the 1948 version with Van Heflin as Athos and Lana Turner as Milady).
There is none of this in the soulless new version, which ends with a set
up for a sequel, one in which it appears that a sky full of airships will
be more memorable than the three plus one Musketeers.
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