All for one and one … and a half stars
The great theatre professor Henry MacCarthy once told me, “Do not add anything to your scene that does not help the story.” Director Paul Anderson ought to take notes here on the movie The Three Musketeers.
It seems he took every comedic one-liner action sequence and thrilling music number, threw it in a blender and hit puree. This is the equivalent of adding a banana and cheeseburger to make a smoothie.
The premise of the movie is the age old tale of the three musketeers, Athos (Matthew Macfadyen), Porthos (Ray Stevenson) and Aramis (Luke Evans), and Musketeer hopeful D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman) who operate under the French king to thwart a coup that will plunge all of Europe into war. The film mixes cinematic styles with allusions to steampunk, Mission Impossible and 300.
The ambition level for the goings on in the movie is high. As far as acting goes, it seems the director decided that when there isn’t action and killing, the characters will be funny and charming. This makes for a 180 degree contrast between scenes that get predictable and difficult to stomach at times.
King Louis the XIII (Freddie Fox) is a pampered, finicky teenager who spends most of his screen time whining. Subtlety is a fleeting invention when every piece of dialogue blurts “I am acting!” giving a truly one dimensional aspect to the meat and potatoes of the film.
Musicality is sub-par, as it seemed every scene, from a musketeer riding a horse into a city to the gang entering a house, was joined with a force of brass that would make Inception cringe. Yuck.
What I love about the movie, however, is the color scheme and cinematography. In this case, going all out was a wise choice by the director. The costumes from this time period are accurate to even the smallest bit-part peasant.
Much of the movie takes place in extravagant plazas and palaces that would make modern day castles drool. When one can train their eye to look away from the actors (not extraordinarily difficult at this point) to observe the amount of knick-knacks in a shop or the variety of camera angles given to just one scene, they will find a treat not normally seen.
The result of this movie is still a mystery to me. Was the action a by-part of the affable acting or vice versa? Certainly they did not mix. With all of these elements, the movie was trying to be so much. Which brings me to my ultimate question … to whom is this movie directed? Not me. I give it one and a half out of five stars.