THE THREE MUSKETEERS
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1993 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Kiefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, Chris O'Donnell, Oliver Platt, Tim Curry, Rebecca DeMornay. Screenplay: David Loughery. Director: Stephen Herek.
The epithets practically write themselves. "Young Swords." "Teenage Mutant Ninja Musketeers." "The Three Mouseketeers" (this one is a Disney product). Pejoratives all, and all suggesting something constructed in a zealously commercial fashion. That's exactly what the latest incarnation of THE THREE MUSKETEERS is: pitch meeting filmmaking in all its overstuffed glory. What is astonishing is that something vaguely resembling entertainment emerged. Thanks to a high-energy finale and a wonderfully goofy performance by Oliver Platt, THE THREE MUSKETEERS narrowly avoids complete disaster.
For those unfamiliar with the basics of Alexandre Dumas' story, it involves a brash young 17th Century Frenchman named D'Artagnan (Chris O'Donnell) who yearns to follow in his dead father's footsteps as one of the king's personal protectors, the Musketeers. Unfortunately, he sets out for Paris just as the Musketeers are being disbanded by the villainous Cardinal Richelieu (Tim Curry). Three Musketeers refuse to surrender their commissions: Athos (Kiefer Sutherland), Aramis (Charlie Sheen) and Porthos (Oliver Platt). Together with D'Artagnan, they set out to foil Richelieu's plans to usurp the throne from young King Louis XIII (Hugh O'Conor) with the aid of the mysterious Milady de Winter (Rebecca DeMornay).
Two huge problems, actually two parts of the same problem of overly-commercial decision making, thwart THE THREE MUSKETEERS from the start. The first is that the casting has virtually nothing to do with appropriateness for the character. Kiefer Sutherland is atrociously wrong as Athos, the former nobleman with a haunted past. He appears to believe that a frown is sufficient for showing melancholia, and he delivers every line exactly the same, as though he were in dire need of more fiber in his diet. Charlie Sheen is a bit better for Aramis, but he too is just plain under-talented. Chris O'Donnell turns D'Artagnan into a bland puppy dog, all youthful bluster and no charisma. Then there's Tim Curry, who plays Richelieu as half Dr. Frank N. Furter, half Alan Rickman's Sheriff of Nottingham from ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES. His lecherous grinning and campy one-liners are supposed to be amusing, but I found them merely sad. My first rule of action/adventure films--that they're only as good as their villains--once again proves true. Fortunately, as uninteresting as the rest of the cast is, Oliver Platt is that engaging. His comic-relief Porthos could have been awful, but he plays it with devilish enthusiasm. Every moment he's on screen is worth watching, and the laughs he generates are as much out of the fun he is so clearly having as they are from anything in the script.
The other big-time mistake is a screenplay by David Loughery and direction by Stephen Herek that cobbles together elements that worked somewhere else, apparently under the impression that great pieces from other films would add up to another great film. We get Spielberg's trademark zoom-to-closeup, and entrances and exits by Richelieu, complete with billowing cape and ominous underscore, that have "Cardinal Vader" written all over them. The chase scenes and duels are lively and fun, but never seemed to be in the flow of the story. One of these duels was so reminiscent of THE PRINCESS BRIDE that two different members of the audience shouted out, "Prepare to die" at exactly the same time. THE THREE MUSKETEERS just doesn't hold together, often looking like it was edited together from other much better adventure films.
Yet for all its calculatedness, I must admit that MUSKETEERS does at least part of what it sets out to do: provide brainless mass-market adventure. After a sluggish first hour, it hits a gallop and cruises to the finish with gusto. The closing half hour is nearly non-stop action, some of it surprisingly good. Perhaps most important, the kids seemed to love it. While somewhat violent, it's mostly slapstick, and appropriate for most of the family. I didn't laugh a lot, but others did, and there was some genuine applause. So go figure.
THE THREE MUSKETEERS will be compared frequently to Richard Lester's definitive 1974 version, which is certainly a much better film overall. Disney's version doesn't pretend to aim for real wit or originality, just a big-budget, big-name piece of cotton candy. There are worse ways to spend a matinee.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 swordfights: 5.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews