Three Musketeers

(2011)
With all due fairness I have a bias when it comes to filmed versions of the Dumas classic; Ive seen several, and none come even remotely close to what I consider the seminal versions, the Salkind pictures from 1973-74 (with Michael York, Oliver Reed, Charlton Heston, etc). The popularity and the resonance of the work endures, obviously, because every five to ten years someone has to try and re-make the film with a different twist on it, because, I suppose, overwhelming quality having been an avenue already taken, we have to try different routes. This attempt, helmed by Paul W.S. Anderson (the man who keeps foisting Resident Evil movies on us) turns the three Musketeers Athos (the usually good Matthew Macfadyen), Porthos (Ray Stevenson) and Aramis (Luke Exans) into ridiculous super-spies who trot all over Europe for France; not content with having them be ordinary soldiers, they are super-heroes who can perform ludicrous feats like taking on twenty men at once. Into their midst rides DArtagnan (Logan Lerman), a cocky butthole who proceeds to insult and annoy everyone, and whom, for absolutely no discernable reason, they take an instant liking to. Whats worse, the queen and king (they were both so bad Ill not mention their names to protect the innocent) are a pair of bumbling idiots, Richilieu (Christoph Waltz) is only slightly less inept, Rochefort (Mads Mikkelsen) struggles to gain a second dimension, Milla Jovovich (you knew she had to be in here somewhere, being director Andersons wife) plays Milady De Winter like Lara Croft, and I honestly cant even begin to describe whatever the hell Orlando Bloom was trying to do with the Duke of Buckingham, ostensibly the enemy of the French but here more Ziggy Stardust by way of Tim Curry. Theres something about an airship that the Musketeers raid Da Vincis secret vault to obtain the plans for (see?), and it figures largely in the background, but we also have to put up with cartoony antics, bad clichs (one cannot actually call what these actors speak dialogue), and perhaps the most tepid romance ever as DArtagnan largely insults and demeans vapid and snooty Constance (Gabriella Wilde). No one has any chemistry, no one really acts; these are flesh-and-blood cartoon characters with barely one dimension who wire-work their way through juvenile action scenes, spouting lines that would make six-year-olds wince. It probably wouldnt have seemed so bad (wait, yes it would) had I not just watched the classic version of this story during the week; but even with no comparison to any movie made with any skill, this piece of detritus would stand out as singularly and appallingly atrocious. The story is as ham-handed and juvenile as it gets, the script was written by someone for whom English is at best a second language, and the performances (and Im being generous with that) are all so over the top the only reason theres any scenery left at the end of any scene is because the vast majority of it is digital and cannot literally be chewed.

Even the production design is patently offensive; the Cardinals guards look like extras from a Marvel film, every costume is new, unblemished, and obviously a setpiece, not something anyone would ever wear ever for any reason except money, and all interiors are haphazardly designed and decorated sets. The things painful to look at, let alone actually try to watch. Even amongst this drivel, two particular items need to be singled out for their incredible lack of any redeeming features whatsoever. The first is Logan Lerman, who plays such an asshole in this movie I wanted to banish him from filmmaking for twenty years. He was marginally acceptable in Percy Jackson, and maybe his persistent offensiveness here can be blamed on inept direction (a host of other ills too numerous to mention can), but I dont think Ive met a character in the last five years that I wanted to punch in the mouth so badly. Almost as bad, or maybe equally as bad when theres this much excrement it can be hard to distinguish is Orlando Blooms performance as the Duke of Buckingham. Here I dont really blame Bloom except maybe for the weird accent he affects but between his sobad-you-wish-for-Tim-Curry acting, his Little Richard hair-do, and just the general overblown sense of every single thing pertaining to or surrounding him, hes actually painful to watch in this film. Ive seen Bloom miscast in other movies, but Ive never seen him be this outrightly bad (hes so campy here he makes Adam West look like Robert DeNiro). For a host of reasons, this is, I believe, the worst film ever made, worse than Ultraviolet (which also featured Milla), worse than Van Helsing (while committing many of the same sins), worse than Prince of Thieves (ditto), Bram Stokers Dracula, etc. You get the point. I doubt if you sat down and tried your damnedest to conceive of the worst film you could possibly make you could outdo this unremitting crapfest, no matter how much time and money you sank into it. In any nation whose laws I had a hand in crafting you could exile or even execute people for crimes this grievous against art. Dumas isnt just spinning in his grave; this film is so egregious an insult to his work and legacy, I can conceive of him rising from it, and, Walking Dead-style, infecting us with a disease which would wipe us all out; for if we as a society actually pay people to make movies like this, then surely we deserve nothing less as a species than extinction. March 17, 2012