clayjardine It's not your traditional Three Musketeer's story, but I think it was a creative take on it. I can see why some people wouldn't like the changes, but I feel like they help to keep the story entertaining.Some of the pacing in the film is weird and the actions of some characters could seem a little humorous, but overall it's a fun movie that should be entertaining to those who just want something to take them out of the real world.

Evan Wessman (CinematicInceptions) While I must admit that I enjoyed this movie very much at twelve years old seeing it in theaters, I cannot sing many praises for it now. It has about as much raw entertainment as is possible for any movie and shamelessly models itself off of Pirates of the Caribbean, which is a major reason why I did and in a way still do enjoy it. I don't want to assume that the people who worked on it did not care about the movie at all, but it seems like more than one somebody was much more concerned with making the movie cool and fun rather than any kind of work of art. And in some ways that's fine, but it does reflect poorly on practically everyone involved.At first glance, it might seem like the plot was thrown aside, but I don't think that's the case. Much of the source material is throw aside to be sure, as the movie follows the content of the first eight or so chapters of the original book and takes vast liberties with it to boot (namely the airmachine). But there was a pretty involved plot that was constructed here that seems like there was a lot of work put into it. Where it falls flat is how the plot was put into script form. It has no evident theme and abandons more realistic or effective scenes in favor of setting up action scenes. The same goes for the dialogue, much of which you won't hear because of the atrocious sound editing in the conversational scenes.The characters are pretty much all one or two-dimensional people with memorable personalities. All of them are little more than your textbook flamboyant heroes, sinister villains, damsels in distress, duplicitous double-crossers, and bumbling comic relief. Nobody aside from Athos and *maybe* D'Artagnan has any sort of arc. Despite the huge cast, nobody gives a great performance, although James Corden's current notoriety may be attributed in part to his performance as Planchett.The action scenes are exciting and over-the-top with a lot of sword fighting and cannon fire. The four against forty battle is largely inflated from the matching scene in the book. Originally, it was four on five and the musketeers all get injured in the fight. I'm not saying that to complain, just pointing out what sort of movie they decided to make here. It may be fun to see our heroes and villains annihilate a bunch of inept minions, but where's the drama or suspense in that?My main recommendation is this: don't expect a great piece of filmmaking or a life changing story, but also know that you probably won't be bored watching it. I have two last bones to pick. First, there was way too much cleavage shown. Keep the corsets for historical accuracy if you have to, but that doesn't mean you have to look down a woman's dress every time she's in a shot. Secondly, the speech Athos gives D'Artagnan near the end about "France taking care of itself". It's such a selfish way of making decisions that I can hardly believe they kept it in. Overall Rating: 6.6/10.

mike48128 It's the original Alexander Dumas story about the purloined necklace with a few unusual twists. Some good and some outrageous. A lot of carnage as the 3 Musketeers plus D'Artegnan, engage over 40 young guards, kill most of them, and act like they just finished a quiet game of chess. Later on, muskets and cannons make it less crude. Milla Jovovich (as Milady De Winter) somewhat reprises the "busty" comic role made famous by Rachel Welch in an earlier version of this film. She plays a double spy, but her own interests come first. Gabriella Wilde is very fetching as the love interest of D'Artegnan. It opens with a direct steal from Indiana Jones. Leonardo Da Vinci's Treasure vault is filled with booby-traps. Milady runs away with Da Vinci's plans for a flying airship, which end up with The Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom). He builds an airship and so does France. Such an anachronism! What gas do they fill the "blimps" with? They otherwise resemble giant warships equipped with advanced conventional weapons. To retrieve the necklace, The Musketeers must journey to England and return it to Queen Anne's neck. Otherwise a terrible war will break out. It's complicated! Familiar villains include one-eyed "Rochefort" and Cardinal Richelieu. An airborne dogfight between the airships and a duel-to-the-death on the parapet of the castle rooftop. Actually quite a fun but preposterous movie and much better than I expected. Watch the ending titles for two "Easter Eggs" including one for a (thankfully) never-realized sequel with too many airships to even count!

ketutar I was looking forward to this movie. The actors are great... or should be. The idea is wonderful. Steampunk Baroque! YAY! ALl my favorites in one movie, wonderful! They had all the ingredients to make a great movie. I could even have forgiven the fixing something that wasn't broke. (If you love THE story of three musketeers, DON'T WATCH THIS MOVIE. It doesn't follow the book. Much.)SO I blame the script writer. The dialogue is weak, the characterization is bad, people's motivations are incomprehensible, the script writer took multidimensional characters and made paperdolls of them.The costumes are horrible. So horrible that I find it hard to not get distracted from the story. Why does the king look like the king of SPAIN? Why does the cardinal wear an armor? And what's with that... robe of his? I mean, the costumer took the one and only horribly misleading painting ever by Henri Motte to base his costumes on! And why would the Duke of Buckingham kiss the French Cardinal's ring? HE WASN'T EVEN CATHOLIC! When Milady faints in one second and the next starts show fighting, I gave up. In the original story Milady was intelligent and sharp and quick, and could manipulate anyone. Richelieu might have been the villain, but he was wise. He too was sharp and intelligent, but he was wise. He didn't want power to have power, he wanted power because of France, AND THE THING IS THAT HE WAS THE BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO France.I was really waiting for a treat with Christoph Waltz as Richelieu, and I knew Milla Jovovich's Milady would have some fighting scenes, YAY! I love feisty girls like that! But... starting with one scheme and change to another the next second and... no. It doesn't work that way! YOU MADE HER HOTHEADED AND STUPID. And no amount of chess is enough to convey how intelligent she is. Stupid! The manuscript writer is stupid! STUPID, STUPID, STUPID!!! So, no! No forgiveness for you for changing the story! The only reason why this movie gets 2 and not 1 is that the actors are great and the idea is great. Horses are great too. And some of the fighting scenes and things are OK too. It COULD have been good.