The Three Musketeers Re-Envisioned
This 2011 version of The Three Musketeers got panned by most critics, and I didn’t see it back then because how many Three Musketeers movies do we need? Since I’m reviewing Steampunk movies this one beeped across my radar.
If you are looking for a faithful or near faithful, serious adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ novel, this movie is not for you.
Director Paul W.S. Anderson put a Steampunk spin on the story and went for comedy rather than seriousness. In Steampunk style, the technology is advanced for the time and over the top: imaginative guns, gadgets, elaborate traps, airships, and a pretty cool battle between two airships, one manned by the Musketeers and the other by Cardinal Richelieu’s men. Remember part of Steampunk is re-imagining the past. In addition, all the serious complexities and characterization of Dumas’ story has been stripped away for comedy and laughs.
If you come at the movie knowing this and want a fun, entertaining Steampunk romp, you’ll enjoy it.
Campy and Okay
I was expecting silly and fun, so I enjoyed the movie and laughed at the silliness. This is a B movie, with a bad script, and some awful dialogue.
The Best Things
1. The airship battle rocks!
2. Orlando Bloom’s over-the-top, old-time villain portrayal of Buckingham.
3. The king’s pathetic attempts to out dandy Buckingham.
Funny Things I Enjoyed:
1. Most of the actors played this as a campy film.
2. Milady’s action scenes.
3. The kings costume mishaps.
4. The musketeers mistreatment of their manservant, which in real life would be barbaric abuse.
What Could Have Been
As a fan of Steampunk, I think it would have been nice to see a Steampunk version of The Three Musketeers with a serious script, good characterization, and complexity. We got this with the Sherlock Holmes movies.
Couldn’t someone in Hollywood figure out how to make Steampunk without reducing it to bad farce? Just a thought I had while writing this review.
A Short Little Rant
I think the reason my mind went in this direction is because when I was a kid, I loved The Three Musketeers, the sequels, and The Count of Monte Cristo. I read them several times. FYI the King’s Musketeers haven’t been disbanded in the first book, but Athos, Aramis, and Porthos are in disgrace when the novel opens.
As a reader, I love the characters because they are heroes with problems, scars, and real issues. In the books, characters are multidimensional and gray rather than flat and black and white.
For Example:
- Each musketeer has real personal problems they are dealing with throughout the novel.
- In the book, the queen was having an affair with Buckingham, and when Buckingham realizes her predicament, he puts love before politics, returns the jewels, and helps the musketeers fool the king, staving off the war the Cardinal Richelieu is plotting between France and England–a complexity that one of the older film version tries to capture.
- D’Artagnan is a self-centered rake in love with Constance but not particularly faithful. He tricks Milady into sleeping with him and engenders her fiery wrath; she spends the rest of the book trying to kill him.
My Alexandre Dumas geek-girl attitude is coming out!
The Usual Reminders:
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