I enjoy my fair share of bad movies – but this new version of The Three Musketeers is so bad that it’s not enjoyable in the slightest. It’s been a while since I give a spoilerific rant about a movie so bad that it deserved it, but Musketeers is worthy. Here we go.
The Three Musketeers opens with a Darth Vader-looking dude rising from the waters of Venice and taking out some guy. When he pulls his mask off, the film pauses and his name appears on the screen in a cheesy font. Remember when Hugo Stiglitz was introduced in Inglourious Basterds? It’s like that, only deadpan serious. Tarantino wanted you to chuckle at it. Musketeers director Paul W.S. Anderson is serious. Each character gets such an introduction – even the director’s non-musketeer wife Milla Jovovich.
After we meet our three musketeers, we learn of their heist in progress – they’re in Venice to break into Leonardo Da Vinci’s secret vault and steal the plans to one of his unmade inventions. Why they are in Italy stealing the plans to a doomsday weapon, we are never told. But before they can celebrate, they are crossed by triple-agent Jovovich and Da Vinci’s plans are given to villainous Orlando Bloom. Why Bloom doesn’t just kill them then while passed out on the floor, we are also never told.
Three days later, Bloom has built the Da Vinci invention – a massive flying boat – and poses a threat to France. The guys are depressed because of their betrayal and failure, but are quickly lifted up when the meet the cocky young son of some random former musketeer that none of them ever knew. Together, the four of them get into cheesy shenanigans even lamer than those of the last three Pirates of the Caribbean films.
The Three Musketeers has no idea what kind of movie it’s trying to be. At times, it’s a softly stylized action movie, borrowing the “slow-down, speed-up” special effects ideas from Zack Snyder’s movies 300, Watchmen and Sucker Punch. Other times it’s quirky and silly like a Pirates movie. Then it becomes a buddy flick, a lame romance movie and a campy comedy all wrapped in one – only those traits are blended like oil and vinegar. It simply doesn’t work. Nothing works.
Much like Skyline, I have no idea how this worse-than-Syfy Original movie made it to the big screen. Whatever you see on this dreadfully poor opening weekend, do not see The Three Musketeers. Eat the candy bar and call it even.
Photo credit: Summit Entertainment
