By Nat Alder
Slashes, gunshots and all kinds of bruises flow through the latest adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ “The Three Musketeers”, directed by Resident Evil series helmer Paul WS Anderson. Instead of exploding zombies and bad acting, this movie delivers swashbuckling swordfights and really bad acting.

The first ten minutes of this movie are some of the most entertaining scenes seen this year. It establishes our 3 main characters extremely well, Athos, a smooth talker-yet always in an extreme state of calm, played by Matthew Mcfayden, then there’s Aramis, played by Luke Evans, who is a tactical and mysterious character, finally there’s Porthos, played by Ray Stevenson, who is the ignorant, brutish character. The chemistry between the three established in the opening act is rather excellent, their wordplay is entertaining enough to not lose you through some of the more boring moments throughout the film.
After the three musketeers are double crossed in the first scene, they are forced to go back to France where they proceed to drink and feel sorry for themselves, which is when another important character comes in.
D’artagnan, the younger hero, is by far one of the most annoying and worst-developed character in cinematic history. He is played here by Logan Lerman (Who you may recognize as the titular character in the lackluster “Percy Jackson” movie.). His character does certain things that would make the audience groan, things that make me wonder why the director or even the writer would choose to keep something like this in the film, why not break the mold for once and do something that the audience doesn’t expect you to do? The things that he does in order to move the story forward are so cliche that they’re frustrating.
The supporting performances are at times ridiculously fun. Christoph Waltz plays Richeleiu, the villain, and his character tries to be reserved, but add Christoph Waltz’s insanely good ability to act and you get a performance that hasn’t hit the spot since he guest starred on “Komissar Rex” in the 90’s. Milla Jovovich plays the femme fatale of the story, and she plays it with ease (It makes sense that she’s in this movie, her husband is Paul WS Anderson, the director of the film.) , and she’s a joy to watch when she kicks lots of French guard-butt. My favorite performance of this movie, though, has to go to Orlando Bloom. Yes, the guy that used to be famous. His character is in this movie for what seems to be 5 minutes, but, oh boy, is it some of the most ridiculous dialogue and acting combined that you just can’t help to think it’s awesome while simultaneously ask yourself, “Why is this guy in this movie?” or “Huh, didn’t he die?”.
The action sequences are decently entertaining and seem reminiscent of the first “Pirates of the Carribbean” film, and this film is just the second one I’ve seen this month that has used slow-motion effortlessly.
The third act seems really disjointed, problems are solved way too fast and characters are given happy endings as if one of the producers forgot to finish up they’re arc and they went back and re-wrote a scene for them last minute.
All in all, yes, this movie is pretty bad. At the same time, I wholeheartedly recommend it, as it’s a movie that can be extremely entertaining at times and the ridiculous performances make up for D’artagnans’ stupid character. All for one and 9.50 for one (ticket, that is.)!
Critics Score (Rottentomatoes.com) : 27%
My Score: 6/10