Cinema review: the Three Musketeers

A steampunk reimagining of the classic Alexander Dumas novel.

Right now, in the darkest corner of the internet, so called “movie fans” are moaning about this one. They say that the plot is stupid, that is historically inaccurate, that it doesn’t use Dumas dialogue and a lot of very bad things. Maybe technically they are right but factually they couldn’t be more wrong.

This is a blockbuster in the purest sense of the world. It’s pure, dumb, adulterated fun.

Basically Paul Anderson, known as the mind behind the Resident Evil Franchise, took “The three Musketeers” and added cool stuff, just for the sake of it. The namesake musketeers aren’t simple swashbucklers here; they are for all intent and purpose a three, and then four, man army, the Justice League of the seventeen century. They even come with added super gadgets like underwater ninja suits.

And this is only the beginning, because the director felt the need to add Air ships. Now of course we all know that it doesn’t make any sense, even Anderson know, the point is that they are cool and they give us one of the most entertaining set piece in the last few months. Probably because he doesn’t have to pretend that this is all really dramatic and serious like in the Resident Evil franchise here the director managed to create action pieces that are fun and lively.

I saw it in 3D and I must commend it, it's the best 3D in quite a while, not that terrible post production stuff, it's the real deal and it added a lot to our experience.

Another thing noteworthy is how among all the steampunk stuff the movie is actually fairly faithful to the spirit of the original. The original ideas are all still there, the musketeers’ personalities, the basic plot, everything is still there. I prefer something like this, where they get the spirit of an age and even manage to get a surprising number of details right to the pretentious “real story” attempt when Hollywood pretend to give us the truth behind the legend.

The dialogue is silly but in a fun and lively way, all the leads certainly aren’t actor studio material but they enjoy an easy chemistry. The surprise hit is Orlando Bloom, not only he plays an improbable moustache twirling villain, he even manages to walk the fine line between farce and epic without falling to either side. I would have never thought that I would have said that but I quite enjoyed his performance.

Sp in the end if you want to have fun come and see this one and don’t underestimate the craftsmanship in doing a fun dumb movie, in a summer that gave us Green Lantern and countless other boring superheroes this must be indeed much harder than it looks.