Director: Paul W. S. Anderson
Cast: Logan Lerman, Mathew MacFayden, Milla Jovovich, Juno Temple, Orlando Bloom
Rating: 3/5
Less Action, more talking…
By Priyanka Ketkar
The Three Musketeers… You heard that it is releasing and the excitement was almost contagious! It is the re-telling of the classic tale of the exploits of three Musketeers and an aspiring young musketeer who fight the bad guys to bring back their lost honour and to protect the French Kingdom and the French Queen’s honour.
The King's advisor, Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz) is a power hungry man. The young King Louis (Freddie Fox) is totally lost in his own ideas and fancies and is ecstatic with his abundant wealth. He is totally unaware of the intentions of this scheming cardinal. Cardinal hates the King's favourites, the Three Musketeers and has disbanded them. Cardinal has a double agent Milady (Milla Jovovich) who is working for both, him and the Duke of Buckingham.
These Musketeers namely, Athos (Matthew Macfadyen), Aramis (Luke Evans) and Porthos (Ray Stevenson), who are out-of-service, are suddenly jolted back to reality with a young lad questioning their power- "I thought the Three Musketeers would be more heroic..." D'Artagnan (Logan Lerman), the brave young lad who has come to the town to become one of the Musketeers, quickly charms the Musketeers and wins everyone's hearts. Meanwhile, the scheming and plotting is still going on and suddenly the Cardinal has a Eureka moment to get rid of the king for once and for all. Since the Queen (Juno Temple) is very smart and will never allow anyone to hurt or dupe the King, he decides to get rid of her. He frames the Queen in a scam so that she will be punished and the king will be dethroned. Now, apparently Leonardo Da Vinci had made a design for building the world’s most dangerous, strongest warship and it is now hidden somewhere. The Three Musketeers are sent on a mission to retrieve this but fail to do so. When it falls in the wrong hands, things start spiraling out of control. The climax comes suddenly, out of nowhere and it is absolutely un-impactful.
The movie, which is based on the novel, Les Trois Mousquetaires by Alexandre Dumas has nothing new or exciting to offer apart from its 3D and its transformation into a Sci-Fi. The flying ships, the superb stunts, the sets, the costumes, the grandeur of the film is superb but it is still not enough to make you want to sit through the movie with the same excitement with which you began watching it. The one good thing in the movie is the performances of the cast. While the movie was more male-dominated, the women in the show out-shined them. Juno Temple, Milla Jovovich and Gabriella Wilde not only look stunning, but also do complete justice to their roles. Logan Lerman is impressive and so are the three musketeers. Orlando Bloom doesn’t make a good villain. Freddie Fox is the best of the lot though and his character portrayal is the most truthful & convincing.
The movie is technically very strong. There are some really good action sequences, which have been done excellently with the help of CGI. The cinematography is beautiful and so are the sets. The screenplay of the movie is very loose and has nothing much to hold the movie together. The music is nothing exceptional. The 3D effects are not exploited properly and there is not much to look forward to on that front either.
Overall, the movie is the kind which you can afford to give it a miss and if not, you are sure to easily forget it after one watch just like their motto- 'All for one, and one for all' which doesn't leave any 'Musketeer-like' impact and is easily forgotten.