Review by Lattimore

The Three Musketeers (12A)

In this busy remake of the repeatedly remade The Three Musketeers we have a strong cast of recognisable genre actors. We have the trio of Matthew Macfadyen (Robin Hood, 2010) as Athos, Luke Evans (The Raven) as Aramis and Ray Stevenson (Thor) as Porthos and as a group they are excellent, each seizing upon the clich�d aspects of their fictional characters and not overdoing it.

Then comes the fourth musketeer Logan Lerman as the arrogant D’Artagnan and even after his experiences as Percey Jackson, in Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief, he fails to convince for much of the time, the fine gloss of this youthful American somehow out of sync with the rough to extravagant French setting.

The English Director, Paul W.S. Anderson, brings along a number of external influences to this film. His obvious casting of his wife Milla Jovovich (Resident Evil) as villainess Milady de Winter, who excels at the action sequences but falls short on the acting, and his casting of English actors and notably the comedian James Corden as Planchet, whose style of comedy sits awkwardly in the flow of the story. But this trusty and put upon side-kick follows the four Musketeers as they seek to recover a diamond necklace to save the Honour of Queen Anne and prevent war in Europe.

There are two problems with this updated version though, aside from the sudden invention of incredibly manoeuvrable airships. Orlando Bloom as the Duke of Buckingham fails at being a baddy and only achieves a poor imitation of Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow and Christoph Waltz (The Green Hornet) as Richelieu is weak. Aside from this when the Musketeers are on screen they are entertaining and this just about holds the story together.

56/100