Paul W. S. Anderson is somewhat reviled by a lot of people as a film director, we know this, but the man has made some movies that I did enjoy sitting through. ‘Soldier’, the first ‘Mortal Kombat’, ‘Death Race’ though I have to admit I did enjoy the Straight to DVD prequel more the Anderson’s explosively insane remake. Plus in a competition of reviled directors of suspect ability who make super huge movies, I’m pretty sure I’d rather sit through a Paul W.S. Anderson movie as opposed to a Michael Bay movie. Just a personal preference. That being said, I think I can assure you that Mr. Anderson’s take on ‘The Three Musketeers’ will not be added to my list of explosively insane Paul W.S. Anderson movies that I enjoyed sitting through. Very little chance of that happening.

Athos (Matthew Macfadyen), Porthos (Ray Stevenson) and Aramis (Luke Evans)… The Three… Oh, hold on, I forgot about Milady the Fourth Musketeer (Milla Jovovich). The director is married to this woman so… you know... whaddyagonnado? Anyway, these are The Musketeers and to make France stronger these four swashbucklers have raided some tomb in Venice Italy, guarded by some guy played by Til Schweiger, who’s German and on his best day can’t conceal his German accent, and have stolen Da Vinci’s plans for a flying warship or something. Next thing you know Athos find himself cruelly betrayed by Milady, the woman he has sworn undying love to, as she has given the plans to the scurrilous Buckingham (Orlando Bloom) who made her a better deal. Bitch!

A couple of years later, now simply drunken slobs living in Paris, the Musketeers are just winding down the days until death until they are revitalized by the young and impetuous D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman) who swashbuckles the spark back into their lives. Plus boy King Louis XIII (Freddie Fox), impressed with the awesome sword play of these heroes, has decided to make these four a part of his personal guard, and now the Musketeers have a cause to fight for once again.

But as you well know, if you’ve seen a Musketeer movie, Cardinal Richelieu (Christopher Waltz) must be up to something because that’s just how he is, and you probably also know that Captain of the Guard Rochefort (Mads Mikkelsen) has to be in

on it as well, because that’s just how he is, and the double-crossing character of Milady will reappear pulling a triple-cross or maybe even a quad-cross depending on how you look at it.

And finally, you probably know that action of the highest order shall ensue. Action that features wire work, slow motion, flying war machines that have crazy weapons like automatic firing cannons, and it’s all going to happen for you in muddy 3D. Just like Alexandre Dumas always dreamed.

So brothers and sisters, we walk into Paul W. S. Andersons’ movie ‘The Three Musketeers’ knowing full well that we’re in for a two hour ride on the coaster of complete and total nonsense. We know this going in. We’re prepared for it. So we dialed down the brain function a couple of notches, a brain that isn’t all that efficient to begin with, and we sit back to allow the pretty pictures to flash across our eyes and have a fun time at the show. While wearing a second pair of glasses which I’m already on record as hating. Two major problems with this movie that even my dialed down brain couldn’t find a way to reconcile. Problem number one is that this movie was filled with humor. The humor itself isn’t problem because who doesn’t like to laugh, right? The problem was that the humor didn’t make anybody laugh. Sitting in a partially crowded theater, I know when that pole fell on that dudes head it was supposed to be funny, but nobody was laughing. Nobody was laughing at anything. If this were a play, halfway through it the stage director would go back stage, alert the producers that the audience isn’t laughing and they’d try to make some changes on the fly. This movie is finished already. There’s almost nothing more painful than sitting through something that’s trying to be funny that’s not funny.

Secondly, and we are certainly not in the business of picking on hard working, affable, eighteen year old boys, but there’s not a lot about Logan Lerman’s interpretation D’Artagnan of that’s swashbuckling or roughish. And forget about all of the other heavy duty European talent littered throughout this film, because this is young Mr. Lerman’s movie to make or break. But instead of the audience getting a dashing, gifted, charming young swordsman, we got something more along the lines of a kid from Ohio in a bad wig, who looks to be around thirteen and was temporarily let of out gym class to play around in a movie. The kid really gave it all he had, believe that, he was just miscast. Probably needed somebody in the movie with the ability to grow facial hair.

Another thing, there really wasn’t a lot swashbuckling in this movie about swashbuckling. The majority of the action came in the way of overblown CGI effects, which did look nice, but I personally prefer swashbuckling in my Musketeer movies and not Blimp Battles. Besides, it looked like Macfadyen, Stevenson and Evans weren’t all that interested in swashbuckling anyway since most of the sweet stuff was saved for Milla Jovovich. In fact, the person with the most swashbuckling experience in this movie, that being Orlando Bloom, didn’t get to swashbuckle at all. What’s up with that?

If you’ve seen the trailer for this movie, and unless you happen to be a French Scholar or worship at the Shrine of Oliver Reed, you know already that this is going to be a different kind of Musketeer movie, even though this tale does stay shockingly close to the story a lot of us are already familiar with in a lot of ways. The problem in the final wash is that the sense of adventure was low due to a lack of sword play, the humor didn’t work, and the film’s star wasn’t quite ready. We were prepared for a stupid fun evening at the movies, but it was the fun part that was missing.