The Three Musketeers

En résumé : Attention la critique qui suit, quoique exceptionnelle, n’est pas pour tous les lecteurs. This movie review is rated PG-13, parents are strongly cautioned. Reader’s discretion is advised. Mr. J.A. n’est pas content. Du tout. Son résumé des Trois Mousquetaires : c’était mauvais comme du Milla Jovovich. Vous voici prévenus.

Dear Michael Bay,

It seems that I owe you an apology. When I watched your latest instalment of The Transformers (the third one) this past summer, I was under the impression that you were uniquely responsible for making movies designed to crush and mock the few parts of my childhood that still hold nostalgia.

But I was so very wrong. And for that, I humbly apologize.

With The Three Musketeers, Paul Anderson has managed to take that nostalgia, and then crush, mock, stomp, spit on, bend over and ass-rape it before setting it on fire and kicking it over a cliff. And then he stood up and slapped my grandmother across the face.

Mr. J.A.'s childhood memories in mortal danger, and it shall soon be Ms. Jovovich's turn.

This movie was horrendously, startlingly bad. It was a lesson in how to make a terrible movie. I suppose I shouldn’t have been shocked—it starred Milla Jovovich, who proved, once again, why she remains the gold standard in poor acting, i.e., “I saw a movie and the acting was horrible.” “Really? How bad? Like, Milla Jovovich bad?” “Yes. It was Milla Jovovich bad. It was Uwe-Boll-winced-when-he-saw-it bad.” Not since Underworld: Evolution has a director married to the lead actress delivered audiences such a steaming pile of horse manure.

I think Orlando Bloom’s casting in this piece of shit ends any illusion we might have had that he was the one who said, “No,” to the fourth Pirates movie. The poor bastard must really need some money to have said yes to this—like, blackmailed-with-pictures-pairing-him-with-a-dead-transsexual-hooker-and-he-can’t-wait-until-the-Hobbit-comes-out needs some hush money.

I suppose I shouldn’t be so hard on Orlando. As the only English character, his accent (not to mention that he speaking the English language) was the closest to being appropriate. Most of the French characters speak with English accents too, so much so that Ray Stevenson’s (who I really liked in Rome) character has to be introduced as a “sexy Frenchman.” (that’s right, just in case you’re confused, this guy here is in fact supposed to be French). Also, country boy D’Artagnan, played by who-the-fuck-cares, comes with an American accent and smarmy, but flat one-liners so bad that by the time he meets Rochefort I was hoping they’d just kill him and put him out of my misery. I don’t mean simply killing the character—I mean I found myself hoping for a Brandon Lee style we-thought-they-were-blanks kind of mix-up that would ensure I never have the misfortune of catching sight of the little shit ever again.

Oops !

I needn’t really bother with a spoiler alert when discussing the plot here. Concern for spoiling this already spoiled movie is kind of like being worried your yogurt has gone bad—it’s fucking rotten milk. Why are you even eating that shit?

But I digress. Like Dumas’ novel, the Musketeers’ main objective is to return the Queen of France’s stolen diamonds from England. Anderson resorts to a muddled series of twists, attempting to resemble a game of chess in which one is always thinking three moves ahead: Milady de Winter will expect the Musketeers to attack in force, so they will use distraction. But no! The Duke of Buckingham expected that so D’Artagnan was caught. But no! The Musketeers expected that so it was all a ruse. But no! Milady expected that and fled with the diamonds. But no! The Musketeers expected that so used Planchet to catch Milady and the diamonds. Milady jumps off the zeppelin (yes, the zeppelin) to her death. But no! She’s been saved by the Duke who has a fleet of warship zeppelins with which to invade France in the set-up to a sequel?!?

In Anderson’s version of chess, apparently one can castle out of check.

Although Rochefort (Mads Mikkelsen not Jean) is a "Bad Boy", Mr. J.A. wants Michael Bay back.

They spent 80 million dollars making this thing. Clearly they spent big on costumes and really bad CG effects. I had expected this to be swashbuckling meets The Matrix, but Anderson’s attempt at bullet-time is just a slow-motion sequence with running. That’s not bullet-time. That’s the Six Million Dollar Man / Bionic Woman. That’s been around since the 70’s.

To his supporters, Anderson is just a guy having fun making a popcorn movie. They pretend he’s poking fun at the genre. Austin Powers was poking fun at the genre. I don’t know what Anderson was trying to make. And what’s more, I don’t think Anderson knows what he was making either. And for the record, I like popcorn movies. I even like bad popcorn movies (I own all three Blade movies). But this is just a really bad movie, really badly done. Calling this a popcorn movie is an insult to popcorn movies. It’s an insult to movies. It is an insult  . . . to popcorn.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to re-acquaint myself with Bad Boys, The Rock, and Armageddon.

In a nutshell: After such heartfelt words, and apparently we only got the toned down version, what to say? The Three Musketeers is a turkey, yes! But a rather joyful carefree turkey. No grandmother is getting slapped in the following review.

Dieu merci nous n’avons pas vu ce film en 3D, Mr. J.A. n’aurait sans doute pas survécu. Je vous conseille en tout cas d’aller voir ce film en groupe car si vous avez la chance, tout comme moi, d’être assis entre une Miss J. toute guillerette, pouffant çà et là aux bêtises abracadabrantes d’Anderson, et Mr. J.A.  entre anéantissement et bouillonnante colère sourde, vous ne pouvez que passer une soirée merveilleuse. Il y avait même une quatrième mousquetaire adjointe à notre trio mais je crains que nous n’ayons jamais sa critique.

La mienne sera bien moins sévère que celle, délicieuse, de Mr. J.A. et, je suppose, moins enthousiaste que celle de Miss J. Cette nouvelle version des Trois Mousquetaires peut sans soucis être considérée comme un superbe navet. Mlle Jovovich démontre que l’expérience n’influe en rien sur ses capacités, elle décline avec le temps, et que le 5^ème élément reste, à date, sa meilleure interprétation. Messieurs Waltz, Mikkelsen et Bloom sont tous entre cabotinage et minimum syndical mais il n’est pas particulièrement déplaisant de les suivre (même si Orlando Bloom est à la limite du carton rouge). Les 3 mousquetaires et le jeune d’Artagnan manquent de charisme, ce dernier a autant d’intensité qu’un artichaut drogué, mais ils sont, dans l’esprit, étonnamment fidèles à celui de leurs illustres modèles de papier.

Bloom, carton jaune, tout surpris d'avoir survécu à la critique de Mr. J.A.

Le fait est notable tant Paul W.S. Anderson a pris de liberté avec cet extraordinaire roman. On ne peut guère parler d’adaptation mais d’inspiration prise dans ce classique de cape et d’épée. Je ne commencerai pas à dénombrer les incohérences, les anachronismes, la stupidité même de certaines situations, et l’ignorance assumée de ce que pouvait être la France du XVIIe siècle. Nul débat non plus sur les carences dans la direction d’acteurs, les difficultés de montage – l’ensemble est bâclé et un peu longuet car répétitif sur la seconde partie du film –, et la terrible promesse d’un n°2 pesamment évoqué dans les dernières images du film. Mais on trouve aussi dans ce vaste n’importe-quoi une candeur ludique, une joie et une énergie surprenante. On peut imaginer ce film avoir une grande carrière en DVD et plaire aux amateurs de cocktail action/humour déjà un brin éméchés. Et on peut donc s’amuser à quelques unes des sottises et cascades proposées par le réalisateur, car à chaque fois que le rythme pâtit, il suffit de se tourner vers son voisin s’étouffant de rage et rire de plus belle. Il s’avère qu’en fait on a mauvais fond.

En résumé: “All for fun and fun for all” ou presque (voir la critique de Mr. J.A.). Ce film n’est pas aussi mauvais que cela, et je vais vous expliquer pourquoi. Vous avez Google Traductions si l’anglais vous échappe. 

So apparently I get the dubious honour of somewhat defending this film, which is pretty ironic given that I had gone expecting it to be awful – I mean, a quick glance at the trailer could have cleared that up, right? So it was less with glee or excitement and more a sense of resignation with a side serving of well-you-never-know that I sat down to watch this film. And I had a pretty good time!

It reminded me of the Castle Lego set of my childhood. You got to create crazy things and have absurd battles – “…and then the giant flying bus full of swordsmen will CRASH into the roof of the SHEEP HOSPITAL and my KNIGHTS will charge over and stampede them and there’ll be a HUGE BATTLE and the PRINCESS will be the referee and then they’ll all DANCE IN THE SKY with the souls of the DEAD SHEEP from the hospital …!!” And director Paul Anderson to my mind is having just such a splurge with this film, only he gets to boss around real people and have actual flying battle boats and a multi-million dollar budget. Respect.

Lego of my boats (caption copyright Monsieur D)

And yes, it gets more and more ludicrous. The acting is perfunctory at best (here’s looking at you, Milla) , but play lego was never about the ACTING, it was about the FUN! And the fact that your story gets more and more elaborate and convoluted, and none of the little plastic critters can contradict you, mwahaha. And we are given a moment of truly great cinema when not one, but TWO giant zeppelins get impaled on the roof of Notre Dame, and wobble about like crazy, and the air starts coming out, just like the air started coming out of poor Dumas’ original masterpiece from the get-go of this eye-popping bit of cinema, but, somehow, all the energy and enthusiasm keeps the whole gargantuan beast afloat until the final moments which can only promise one thing: a SEQUEL! With MORE ZEPPELINS than you could ever IMAGINE!! See you there, Mr J.A.?