It seems that Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers has had something of a renaissance of popularity in recent years. Though, it is a stupendous classic novel, so that is hardly surprising. Back in 2011, the story was given a new cinematic reboot, and it remains the latest attempt to drag the Musketeers into the 21st century on the big screen.
Often billed as a "steampunk version" of the tale, the film swiftly and at times savagely whirled through Dumas' tale, often with quite varied and awful results in my opinion.
One of the film's big selling points was that it was in 3D (yawn). If you sell a film as a big 3D movie, it needs to blow your socks off visually. Whilst the envisioning of the 17th century was stylish enough in its historical inaccuracy (an airship landing in 17th century Paris - I ask you?!) its effects and action sequences were no more than ordinary for a film of this type, often venturing into the idiotic rather than dazzling in terms of its look.
This crop of characters are iconic, and throughout the centuries they have remained so, despite good and bad interpretations. Let's start with the Musketeers themselves. Logan Lerman as D'Artagnan. OK, yes I can see why they have done it (and comparatively his performance was not that awful) but for the most part it does not work; the end result not being bad so much as boring. Luke Evans and Ray Stevenson as Aramis and Porthos respectively just about work; they just about fit into their very basic character archetypes. Richard Macfadyen as Athos is an odd one. The best way I can describe my view of this performance is somewhere between so badly clichéd its brilliant, and so horribly cringe-worthy I can't look. When showing Athos as an action hero with a very cavalier attitude to everything, Macfadyen works, but the second any feeling or emotive reaction attempts to encroach, it all comes apart for me.
Strangely this whole weird blend of badly good/bad in a character presents itself again several times over. I reacted in a similar fashion to Freddie Fox's King Louis XIII, who's pompous foppish twittery is believable until he tries to show a human side, and to Orlando Bloom as the villainous Duke of Buckingham. In the latter case the pantomime antics, wooden clichés and sheer bombardment of lunacy were so great that I really cannot decide if they were results of genius intention or a film-long string of unhappy cock ups.
Mads Mikkelsen is a complete and utter awful flop as Captain Rochefort, and Juno Temple and Gabriella Wilde, whilst pretty as Queen Ann and Constance are quite forgettable the moment they go off screen and are nowhere near enough to convince as leading ladies. Milla Jovovich is indeed all the right amounts of sassy, sexy and charismatic, but there is not a second of film where she comes close to convincing as Milady de Winter, or even as any kind of villainess.
Solidly positive performances? Well James Corden provides reliable comic relief as Planchet, and the superb Christoph Waltz adds that much needed quality as the Cardinal Richelieu, but even he isn't enough to save this one.
I really do think that the minds behind this film did not spend enough time on the overall feel and end result of this film. Instead of which they seem to have simply thrown some big names and some striking effects at the plot and hoped for the best. It's a shame really; 2011's The Three Musketeers is at best an OK 110 minutes of escapism, but frankly I feel Dumas and his classic work deserves a bit more than that.
No comments:
Post a Comment