The Three Musketeers. Rated M (action violence). 110 minutes. Directed by Paul W S Anderson. Screenplay by Alex Litvak and Andrew Davies. Based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas.
While it’s certainly no masterpiece, there is much to enjoy about this rollicking and picturesque take on the age-old classic tale of swashbuckling, 3D derring-do between the French and English Courts that, to everyone’s credit, absolutely refuses to take itself too seriously.
Mr Litvak (Predators) and Mr Davies’ (Bridget Jones's Diary) buoyant screenplay plays rough and ready with the famous story of the French King’s musketeers – Athos (Matthew Macfadyen), Porthos (Ray Stevenson), Aramis (Luke Evans) and young D'Artagnan (Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief’s Logan Lerman) – who must band together to defend the French Queen’s honour from almost certain disrepute, while trying to stay one leap ahead of the toxic Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz), the double-crossing Milady de Winter (Resident Evil’s Milla Jovovich) and the ambitious Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom).
Stylishly photographed by Rambo and Resident Evil: Afterlife cinematographer Glen MacPherson, sumptuously dressed by Pierre-Yves Gayraud (The Bourne Identity, Perfume) and starring a couple of excellent airships (from designs by Leonardo da Vinci), Mr Anderson (the Resident Evil franchise) keeps all the bluff, bluster and skulduggery moving along at a mostly agreeable pace.
If the airship action sequences and the sword-fight between D'Artagnan and the Cardinal’s henchman Rochefort (Mads Mikkelsen) atop Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral are standouts, it is ultimately Paul Austerberry’s (Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Twilight: Eclipse) lavish production design and the ideal locations (the film was shot in Bavaria) that provide most of the truly memorable highlights.
This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group and the print edition is included below.
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