Why are you interested in this adaptation?
Elena-
I actually have a special place in my heart for the Three Musketeers in all iterations. The book was the first piece of “literature” that I read at I think 10 or 11, when I had run through all the SFF in my school’s library and decided to start edumucating myself by reading some of the classics. I am fairly sure it was an abridged version—this is based on my memory of finding the story really easy to read and very fast-paced, which, having suffered through an unabridged version of Count of Monte Cristo I know that Dumas’ writing really isn’t—and I loved it.
I also have a love for the version of the movie from the early 1990s. That came out, or came out on VHS to rent, about the time I was finally starting to move from cartoons to live-action films. (For a very long time…embarrassingly late into my upper childhood, to be honest…the only non-cartoon movies I could watch were The Princess Bride and Monty Python’s Meaning of Life. Really this explains almost everything you need to know about me.) I wanted to see the movie because I had enjoyed the book so much, and I remember loving the movie. Chris O’Donnell was so cute! Girard Depardieu so jolly! And the theme song? Oh, how I loved that song! (Still do.) Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart, and Sting. I didn’t know or care who any of them were, but that song was one of the first pop songs I fell in love with (are we sensing a theme of awakening from my childhood under a rock here?).
However. Having fond attachments to a previous version of this story isn’t enough to make me want to see the new one. I also want to see this movie because:
-Pretty men. Lots and lots of pretty men.
-My historical costume obsession dictates that I must see something with this many yards of lace and silk in its costume budget
-I spent all week before it opened watching Serious Films at the New Orleans Film Festival, and while those kinds of movie are rewarding they are also emotionally exhausting. I knew I would be in the mood for some mindless, quite probably ridiculous popcorn and eye candy flick, and that’s exactly what this movie looked like.
Rachel-
Not going to lie at all, I watch all of Milla Jovavich’s movies. I love her. It might be unhealthy.
This isn’t going to run well with the English majors out there, but the last time I read the actual book was when I got the literary classics budget collection when I was a kid. Swash buckling, eye patches, insults, terrible screwy love stories. I do know the gist, but I admit I haven’t read this one in a while.
Mostly, I wanted to see this movie because the Musketeer movies of the 90s were pretty awesome, at least my brain says so. Queue the Bryan Adams sing-a-long! “One for allll! And alll for looooveee!”
Oh, and like Elena, I watch all the costume movies. ALL OF THEM!
So, what would make it suck?
Rachel-
Hmmm, well I can say that the ads for this film are making me think it actually WILL suck? The bad Photoshoppery, and Orlando Bloom is Buckingham? HAA HAHAHA. You guys, let’s not kid ourselves! He’s not bad guy material. So yeah, this is not going to be a best drama contender. This is going to be a movie where beautifully wigged men kill each other with swords, and Milla will probably punch someone in the face repeatedly.
Elena-
Oh, lord, where do I start? Terrible acting. Terrible accents. If they went full Knight’s Tale and had a modern rock soundtrack. (Sophia Copola barely pulled it off for Marie Antoinette. I don’t know who is directing Three Musketeers, but I am certain, sir, that you are not a Sophia Copola by another name.) If the costumes are not period-appropriate, which now that I’ve gone full nerd about fashion history, I will actually be able to tell. If they make the story so different from the book that it is The Three Musketeers in name only.
And what would make it awesome?
Elena-
If they give Christopher Waltz and Mads Mikkelsen a lot of screen time. Because those are two of the most compelling onscreen villains (or antiheroes, as Mikkelsen’s role in Valhalla Rising is the ostensible protagonist) of the past year. And I have the old Space Balls attitude about the “good”: “Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.” Whenever that is true, I am on Team Villain.
Pretty boys are very often dumb. So I fully expect to be on Team Villain for this movie. Thus my villainous villains of infamous villainy need to be on screen a lot in order for me to be satisfied. It will be like A Spell for Chameleon on screen—I lust after the hotness, then get bored with them and want some not-so-good-looking smarty-pants to balance it out. It averages into a very well-balanced film, character-wise.
Rachel-
I am actually hoping they fiddle with this story to the absolute limit of its millionth remakeyness. What I am saying is, I (unlike Elena) want them to give it the Knight’s Tale treatment. Throw some modernisms in there; celebrate the genre rather than the story. I’m hoping it is really funny and the fight scenes are sick.
Additional thoughts on casting or production?
Rachel-
It is in 3D for no reason at all, so that, combined with the C-grade ad campaign, leaves me really no confidence in the production. Paul W. S. Anderson isn’t a genius at all, but I’m hoping that maybe this is some sort of personal project between he and the wifey (that would be Milla, aren’t you jealous of him now?), and it will be quirky and weird at the very least.
Elena-
Rachel has it right. Quirky and weird would be great. Even just a showcase of Milla’s badassery, with men in wigs and tights, would be pretty all right.
I don’t know where they found that Orlando Bloom look-alike, but it’s essentially the male version of Natalie Portman and Keira Knightly. I bet there is a plot thread where whichever musketeer that is has to impersonate Buckingham, like be on a boat or something public in order to keep him from getting caught cavorting with the queen because, yo, he was on a boat and people saw him. That was in the book, right? Or am I now getting it confused with the doppelganger plot point in A Tale of Two Cities? Hm. Eh, who cares? I just want to see some good swashbuckling fun, realistic or not, accurate to the book, or not.
Thoughts after seeing the movie?
Elena-
Uh….what the fuck happened? It was like they went down my checklist of things not to do, point by point. This was like everything that could go wrong, going wrong, all at once, on the same production. Bad script? Check. Bad textiles for the costumes? Check. Cheesy callbacks to other movies? Check. Orlando Bloom continuing his downward trajectory of being worse in every film than he was in the one before? Check. Historical inaccuracies so blatant I wouldn’t have noticed someone driving a truck through them? Check. Every nuance and intrigue of the book removed for simple stupid American audience? Check.
I am not sure I can think of one good thing to say about this movie.
Well, that’s not true.
Planchet.
That’s one.
Um…the evil pirate airship. (Also, why is Abney Park not suing for copyright infringement?! They are the only airship pirates! According to their song “Airship Pirates” at least….)
That’s two.
(Crickets chirp.)
And yet somehow it was still marvelously, hilariously, moustache-twirlingly entertaining.
I am so confused. Hold me.
Rachel-
WHAT WAS THAT?
Oh…well, they did some messed up “genre” stuff BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT GUYS! Throwing random steampunk crap into a story that is in no other way steampunk doesn’t make any damn sense. Yes, I mean the air ships. I JUST TYPED AIR SHIPS. Also, the costume design was rock show chic but it had no guts.
Neither did the writing. Milla was entirely miscast as de Winter, she tried to seem evil and manipulative and she came off like a woman who couldn’t believe what was falling out of her mouth. This is a woman VERY used to the cheesy lines and the wooden dialogue, and I still couldn’t get to a place where her eye makeup and jitsu were entertainment enough. In fact, the fight scenes in general were REALLY uninspired. Very perfunctory.
Orlando Bloom’s pompadour made me laugh EVERY SINGLE TIME I SAW IT which was all the time because I couldn’t tell the different between him and the guy playing Aramis (who, BTW, is my favorite musketeer, so that really disappointed me).
The only thing I liked was Athos’ voice. But that’s also the only reason I liked the Keira Knightly remake of Pride and Prejudice. Same guy, right? Had to be. My lady parts know that voice.
As far as the story goes, from what I remember of Chris O’Donnell’s 1990s reign, the story was exactly the same? Only with airships. And Milla was a REALLY shitty de Winter (who by the way, I know this reference happens a lot in the book but it’s different, was actually introduced Guy-Ritchie-style as “Milady” LIKE THAT WAS HER NAME. No aliases. She had dozens of names! PICK ONE! You can’t just randomly say “oh…you know, Milady!” and then be like OH THAT RANDOM FEMALE OF NOBILITY. Huh? Context actually needs to be a thing, you guys.). Also, every single character was a raging asshole. No one was funny. Not even a little. Were they supposed to be funny? The only part I laughed at was when I saw D’artagnan’s horse. Oh and his wig. And his face. And the ninja turtle gear that Athos wears in the first 15 seconds. And my dignity.
Speaking of Guy Ritchie, that was the most pathetic imitation of his style that I have ever seen. Can people DO that? Is that allowed? Snatch is on my top ten films of all time (I really like meta-genre stuff), so I might be extra sensitive to this bastardry, but UGH. Make. It. Stop.
Elena-
Nooooo!!!!!!! The story was not at all the same! In the real story (and the O’Donnell version which actually followed it kind of decently, if I recall that movie correctly…mostly I think I recall at the time thinking it was actually kind of like the book?) the queen and Buckingham are lovers and the musketeers are working to save them both, because…the cardinal is trying to start a war with England and they don’t want war even though the queen is betraying their king? Or maybe they were queen’s men and not king’s? But there are diamonds that they have to go rescue, and Lady de Winter gets flung off a bridge for her trickery, and Aramis is all broody and guilty and d’Artagnan’s love affair with Constance is doomed because she is a queen’s lady and all they can ever have is some illicit nookie on the side. So, I mean, there are similarities, but the way they are strung together, and why those events happen, are just so different. I wouldn’t have minded the simplification if the action had been as swashbuckling and awesome as I wanted, because the actual story is fairly ambiguous as to who you SHOULD be sympathizing with once you get past the front four.
And I am going to disagree with you on Milla. I actually loved her in this part. Oddly, because I hated the part—it was made of WTF. Lady de Winter is a double-crossing bitch of a female spy, but she’s not like kung Fu master. I mean, I guess I should have expected that with Milla being cast, but I thought, I dunno, that maybe she was going for an acting gig not an action gig? That one was my fault. But to that point: the places I liked her in this movie were where she wasn’t doing the action or physical stuff. Her scene with the cardinal, where she gets the letter of direction? Wow. That was some psychological cat and mouse you could have run through with a rapier.
So can we please talk about the cardinal? I am I the only one who thought Waltz’s performance was extra-smug because he was thinking the whole time “How the hell did I end up in this train wreck? Oh, well, after Inglorius Basterds all anyone will be able to think when they see it is how did Christoph Watlz end up in this train wreck? HE’S BETTER THAN THIS! So I’m going to win anyway…”? Because he was deliciously smug, and I feel like that Meta element might have driven his inspired performance.
And then when Milla showed up it was like they realized they were both having that train of thought and decided to outdo one another. It gave me lady wood a little bit.
Oh! And the Milady-like-that-is-her-name thing. I am thinking the scriptwriter seemed to think 17th-century spies all sort of knew each other and had code names the same way they do on Archer. So the same way Archer’s code name is “Duchess,” and that is what all the other spies know him as, Lady de Winter’s was “Milady.” I mean, I agree, it’s stupid and lame, and the entire point of being a spy back then was having people not know that you are a spy and if you run around using your spy alias everywhere and expecting everyone to know it as their first association with that title of address then you’re not a very good spy.
And Rachel reminds me that I have additional movies they referenced to add to my list: Every Guy Ritchie film ever, because yes that was absolutely trying to imitate his style. Oy.
Rachel-
Okay, you’re right. It’s not the same. I did expect the Queen to get with Buckingham because that King…no way. But then they started playing it all MTV movie of the week, which was expected because they basically took all the nuance and detail from the story and then they were left with this really vague plot about reputation and swords. Which I guess is why they decided to throw in all that hoopla about the airship which BTW… at the end with the kissing and the stuff blowing up…did anyone else think it was HILARIOUS that the airship was DEFLATING during this highly stimulating climax? No? It had to have been on purpose.
The cardinal was OK? He was by far the least shitty actor in the entire production. Maybe he did a great job? I couldn’t tell through all the bullshit. I was also distracted by Milla in nearly all his scenes, she was so uncommitted to the part I expected her to drop a “Hey guys” or “What’s up?” pretty much every time she opened her mouth.
“Hey guys, what’s going on? Want to steal some jewels? I am not a spy. You look really hot. H.O.T.”
Milla, I LOVE YOU! STOP THIS!