The Three MusketeersIsn't French literature wonderful!
Truthfully though this film pushed me too far. I felt like colonel Jessup being asked for a copy of a transfer order by a young Tom Cruise. This f***ing Anderson is making me crazy. You see, I can deal with the bombs and the bullets and the blood. I don't want realism and I don't want continuity. What I do want, Cardinal Richelieu, is for you to sit there in that f-ity red uniform and not suggest illegal chess moves!
"Did you order the castling of a king that was in check?!"
"You're god damn right I did!!"
"Cardinal Richelieu, you're under arrest for cheating (and being completely boring in this movie).
The facts of the case are these:
One, The soundtrack is a blatant ripoff of the Sherlock Holmes films.
Two, Milla Jovovich is miscast.
Three, Dawson and Downy were specifically ordered not to touch Santiago.
"These are the facts, and they are undisputed."
The 4 vs 40 sword fight was probably my favourite sequence. It was of course crippled, the way all PG sword fights are crippled (see below), but bloodlessness aside I was into what was going on. I would've liked a few less cuts in the action, it bordered on disorienting, but the choreography was creative, and surprisingly respectful of gravity and the other physical laws.
On a few occasions the slo-mo let you pick up on things that would not be noticeable in real-time. Like the flexing of a sword.
Pretty cool.
The characters, oh the characters...
I would've liked to get to know the three musketeers better. Aramis felt basically the same as Athos, but he talked less. Porthos was predictable. But the main thing is I never developed any kind of hero worship for them. They felt like generic, skilled swordsmen. I dunno... I wanted to have chills... and feel like "oh shit, here they come", but it never really happened. It's hard to say really (with crap dialogue), but I thought the actors they cast were good. The guy they cast for Athos was an odd choice, but he had a presence and he felt distinct. The other two... *shrugs*.
Everyone else... ugh. What boring one-note rolls. They've all been better elsewhere, and I think it actually hurt the film to cast such familiar faces and have them do so little, as opposed to casting nobodies and having them do the exact same thing. It's just disappointing.
And yet I finished the film easily. I don't know what that means. Perhaps it's a bit Wild E Coyote-ish. It's only a problem when you stop to think about it, which you don't really do as long as the film is rolling.
All in all things could've been better.