We live in a time of constant remakes and reboots, prequels, sequels and re-imaginings, sometimes even rebootquels and prequakes. Sure, thanks, I'd love another version of The Thing that takes place 15 minutes before the last one and why not do another Footloose, since I'm pretty sure people still like to cut loose and pick up their Sunday shoes.
But The Three Musketeers? Really? There have been 22 live-action versions of the film since 1903 (including a martial arts take from 2001 and a 1993 Disney production starring Kiefer "DAMMIT" Sutherland and Charlie "winning" Sheen) and seven animated versions since 1953 (including Barbie and the Three Musketeers from 2009, which is either a kids' movie or porn). If you're going to do another Musketeer movie then it needs to add something new to the formula, but all the new Musketeer film adds is laughable acting, incompetent direction and a script so filled with clichés that it starts swallowing itself like an Ouroboros.
I can't even begin to tell you how bad Orlando Bloom and Milla Jovovich are in this. Bloom looks like a drag king at an Elvis retrospective and Jovovich just seems so bored and detached from the material, it almost feels like she's in a different movie. Matthew Macfadyen, Luke Evans and Ray Stevenson are a joy to watch as Athos, Porthos and Aramis, but this version tries to make us think D'Artagnan is the character we are interested in. But Logan Lerman's D'Artagnan is such a prick in this that I found myself rooting for Rochefort in their climactic battle. I hate Chris O'Donnell more than any other actor on this Earth and I still liked his D'Artagnan from the 1993 version better than the little bastard in this.
Jovovich's husband, Paul W.S. Anderson, directed this waste of your afternoon and nothing in his prior filmography should make you expect anything different. I consider him to be one of the worst directors working in Hollywood (he screwed up Alien vs. Predator, which should have been an instant bowl of awesome and instead it was the worst movie of 2004) and this film is right at the top of my worst of 2011 list.
I'm not going to mince words. I know that life is really hard for a lot of you right now and when you go to the theater you just want to shut your brain off and be entertained for two hours with no thoughts about the real world. But this isn't that film. It's crap. Crap that will depress you more for spending money you don't really have on its phony, empty promises of entertainment.
Occupy better movies.
The Three Musketeers
One Star
Starring Logan Lerman, Matthew Macfadyen, Milla Jovovich and Ray Stevenson.
Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson
Rated PG-13
