The Three Musketeers (2011) review

Alexandre Dumas’ classic swashbuckling novel gets yet another movie makeover – this time in 3D – as young country boy D’Artagnan (a wishy-washy Lerman) joins forces with the legendary musketeers Athos, Porthos and Aramis to uncover a plot involving the Queen of France’s jewels, the double-crossing Milady (Milla Jovovich) and the scheming Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz). Throw in Orlando Bloom as the equally devious Duke of Buckingham, and some flying war machines that look like they have been designed by Terry Gilliam, and you end up with a silly but entertaining movie that bears little resemblance to the source novel.

But who cares? This is a daft romp and doesn’t try to be anything else. The cast dash around with their tongues firmly in cheek, buckling swashes, waving guns and throwing punches against a bonkers backdrop (those airships – a nod to ‘steam punk’, the sci-fi/fantasy genre that features futuristic yet Victorian-style machines often powered by steam) that allows well-known historical landmarks to be crushed before the end titles. In the midst of all this, there are some nice bits of casting: Matthew MacFayden sulks as Athos, Luke Evans and Ray Stevenson are cool as Porthos and Aramis, Mikkelsen is seething as meanie Rochefort and Waltz is hilariously mean, too. But none of them steal the show as well as a marvellously-coiffed Bloom, looking like Adam Ant and acting like he’s ready to twirl his moustache any moment, and Freddie Fox as the young, petulant and embarrassingly naive King Of France. Their performances are worth the price of admission alone.