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The film’s story is a bundle of clichés wrapped in historical inaccuracies and sprinkled with straight up rip-offs of other action films. D’Artagnan even asks the local bully to apologize to his horse, just like Clint Eastwood in “Fistful of Dollars”. All told, it rips off nearly every major action franchise in the last 40 years, from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” to “Pirates of the Carribean”. The attempt to tell an original story is clearly less important to the filmmakers than random stylized action and trite one-liners.

While Paul Anderson has made some decent films (Event Horizon was pretty solid), this movie is more in the vein of his more recent entertaining but stupid action films (Aliens vs. Predators, the Resident Evil series). But even Anderson’s stupider films have their entertainment value. For instance, if you’ve ever wanted to see an automatic, rapid-fire cannon, a battle in a thunderstorm between airships, or Mila Jovovich doing aerial acrobatics in a flowing gown, this movie’s got you covered. While it fails to stimulate in any way that could even jokingly be called cerebral, it is very visually engaging. Overall, the pretty action sequences manage to keep you distracted from the fact that everything you are seeing is inane.

I liked seeing Orlando Bloom as the film’s slimy villain, the Duke of Buckingham. I never liked him much as a hero, but as an arrogant douche-bag, he’s perfect! I wonder what that says about him as a person?

Final Synopsis: If you have an hour and a half to kill and don’t want to accidentally learn anything or be challenged in any way, the new “The Three Musketeers” may be just the film for you.

Points Lost: -1 for ripping off every action movie ever, -1 for being rife with historical inaccuracies, -1 for terrible dialogue and -1 for insulting my intelligence.

Lesson Learned: “Trust no one. Especially women. You’ll live longer.” – Orlando Bloom as the Duke of Buckingham

Burning Question: Why is there such a high demand in America for mediocre formula movies?

The Three Musketeers (2011)
6/10

Tags: 2011, 3D, 3d garbage, action, adventure, christoph waltz, gabriella wilde, latest movie reviews, logan lerman, luke evans, matthew macfadyen, milla jovovich, orlando bloom, Paul W.S. Anderson, ray stevenson, swordfighting, swords, til schweiger