Vaughn On Movies – The World's Toughest Movie Critic™

I can’t get past something that has troubled me with every incarnation of this tale. By definition, musketeers are soldiers equipped with muskets. However, this story always comes down to a mystique surrounding the legendary swordsmanship of the musketeers. For this latest incarnation, The Three Musketeers (2011), that’s the least of my concerns.

Athos (Mattew Macfadyen), Aramis (Luke Evans), and Porthos (Ray Stevenson) are the legendary title characters. Living in a time where their country of France has little need for them, the three crave adventure. They take under their wing D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman), a young swordsman, and set of to try and prevent a war. Along the way they have encounter a deadly assassin (Milla Jovovich) and a Duke with a flying ship (Orlando Bloom).

So not only is there a logistics nightmare involving skyward transportations, but key characters fail to meet the fate dictated in the source material. You can look at this with the distain some had for the home run in The Natural film that didn’t fit the source, or consider the proceeding more upbeat.

The Three Musketeers plays for the laugh a little more often than deserved, especially when that involves poking fun at the plus size assistant, Planchet (James Corden). It’s not overtly funny seeing birds make a mess of his face, or yawning as he grabs for free food at every opportunity.

The Three Musketeers is directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, whose work on Resident Evil: Afterlife showed a knack for 3D. Like that zombie survival movie, this one too uses 3D from the ground up. However the lack of excessive slow motion makes this film tougher to appreciate. There’s also few instances of objects being hurled at the lens and overall the foreground and background elements didn’t separate for me like previous 3D films I’ve seen. Still, I want to write this off as a fault of the venue because it keeps happening.

Beyond absurd, The Three Musketeers does reach what I believe it set out to do: entertain a youthful audience with Pirates of the Caribbean-esque mischief. I’d like to tell you there are better options available in theatres today, but many films can’t even differentiate characters. Looking at you The Thing (2011). **