the three musketeers

What a poor film.

Paul W S Anderson seems to have a bit of a thing for churning out generic stuff.  He's not actually listed as a writer on this film, but it's a film very much in that style.

What they're tried to do here is a bid of a modern things in the old world vibe.  So one of the main things they use in the film is a flying galleon (as in like a zeppelin).  It's the slapping on of baubles, bells and whistles for no real gain or benefit - which seems to be quite the Anderson trait.

There are some good things in the film.

There's a sequence towards the front end which is like something out of the Civilization series or risk and is pretty cool.  The special effects are generally very good, though the water at the beginning looks a bit fake.  Also James Cordon is good and brings some genuine comic relief.  Also the bad guys are quite nasty, though you never really feel they're actually going to win at any point.

The real problem with the film is that the key elements - Dartanian and the three Musketeers are actually a bit meh.  I don't know if it's because they're very generic or because they're quite flat as characters, but I never really felt any connection - or, indeed, sympathy - with them.

After the opening sequence I think we're supposed to believe that the Musketeers have sort of been fired or put out to pasture.  But it's in no way convincing - they're clearly still in the King's favour.

There's also a fairly major tweak the basic plot.  It's a tweak I think has been used before, where the reason for them going to England is essentially flipped on its head, but I didn't mind that too much.

The flip does also allow Anderson to give the wife a bigger role (Mila Jovavic).  She plays the role well enough, but unfortunately she's the focus for much of the "new stuff shoved into the past".  So there's one sequence where she's basically doing a whole Mission Impossible stealing things riff.

I mean, it doesn't go so far as doing the whole zip wire lowers but stops inches from setting of the alarm, but it might as well have.  And that's kinda my problem - there's nothing here that doesn't feel like you've seen it a dozen times before.  It's all a bit cliché, but I didn't really feel any sense of irony to it, so it ends up feeling quite flat.