By Alex White
Staff Writer
Between overzealous sword fighting and mindless dialogue, the new film “Three Musketeers” is perfect for the certain people who prefer large explosions to coherent plot and themes.
“Three Musketeers” is a movie with high entertainment value, but it fails to differentiate itself from other high budget action movies that seem to perennially reappear. Trying to move beyond the fight scenes in this sub-par feature is nearly impossible. The characters are boring and unrelateable, and the predictable plot fails to entertain.
This $75 million movie attempts to tell the classic story of the Three Musketeers, originally written by Alexandre Dumas. D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman), a skilled, young and cocky peasant hopes to become a musketeer and travels to Paris to follow his dream. He soon meets the famous Three Musketeers who are recently down on their luck. Together the foursome attempt to save the King from losing power to the backstabbing Cardinal Richelieu and restore honor to the throne of France.
The first drawback of the movie takes place within the first five minutes. Director Paul W.S. Anderson decided to freeze frame on each of the characters mid-action, like a mediocre TV show, making “Three Muskateers” incredibly off-putting and jarring from the very beginning.
Another shortcoming of the film comes in the shape of weak acting performances from the cast. Specifically, actor Luke Evans, in the role of Aramis, is unable to bring realism or emotion to his character.
The over-dramatic and often clumsy roles of the underdeveloped characters make the movie a bit funny at times when it is not supposed to be. Anderson and the writers attempt to give each character subtle cleverness, but most attempts at humor fall completely flat.
Even the comic relief moments leave the audience wondering if its supposed to laugh. A movie like this is supposed to have some comedic moments, but unfortunately, the writers leave viewers empty handed.
That being said, for those who enjoy movies for the sole purpose of watching fun fight scenes will not be disappointed by this movie. Just about every 10 minutes another reason arises for the Musketeers to pull out their swords and take on minor armies of soldiers in a seemingly outmatched battle that they invariably come out of unscathed. In a twist to the classical setting, steampunk airships provide an opportunity for an effective and creative action-packed set-piece.
As a whole, “Three Musketeers” is not a film worth seeing. Other than some relatively exciting action, the film questions your intelligence as a viewer with its un-nuanced plot and terrible characters. If you do go, plan to come out laughing for all the wrong reasons.
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