So, I have to be honest…I was pretty disappointed in this movie. I’ve seen various different versions of the Three Musketeers (The Man in the Iron Mask, cartoon dog versions, BBC’s The Three Musketeers….), so I was pretty excited to watch this one and…it juat wasn’t as good as I thought it could be.
D’Artagnan was definitely the most well-rounded character of this movie, but his first interactions with Athos, Porthos and Aramis showed a more arrogant, reckless side to him that really didn’t come to fruition during the rest of the movie. Why did he goad each of them into wanting to duel? What was his end goal? To win them over so that he could get them to vouch for him to join the musketeers in the end? Honestly, it seemed like this was just thrown into the movie for no reason other than to get D’Artagnan in front of the musketeers.
Unfortunately, this pretty much fit the theme of the movie. There was a lot of potential here, but it all fell rather flat. There was too much telling by the other characters and not enough showing. What were Athos’ demons? Why was he so willing to accept death and thought it was possible he’d actually killed a woman? And where was Aramis’ conflicts that Porthos references? If those had been shown, it would have made for a much more interesting movie.
I did think that the strongest part of this movie was the political intrigue and the relationship between the King and the Queen, as most of the true conflicts of the conflicts in the movie came from the Queen’s obvious feelings towards another man and her having to navigate the suspicions of her husband. It would have been good to see more detail about that, instead of the forced romance between D’Artagnan and Constance. Honestly, the film would have been much better without the romance shoehorned in and more development in the characterisation of the musketeers.
The sword fights in the movie were visually appealing and Eva Green’s version of Milady was a really intriguing one. While I didn’t particularly enjoy this version of the story, I’d be interested in watching the second movie in order to see more of Milady and learn about her history in this version. But I don’t have any interest in rewatching this movie…and I would hope that the sequel actually spends more time showing instead of telling.
Ink of Blood 