Some movies are all style and no substance. Studios think packing a movie full of actors you’ve seen in other (and usually better) movies, dressing them in fantastic looking costumes and throwing in some over the top  action sequences will make an audience forget that the story has been done time and time again. For example, “The Three Musketeers”, released in 2011, has been done dozens of times before this and unfortunately this might be the most boring version of all of them.

The cast ranges from impressive to bland, featuring Luke Evans as Aramis, Matthew Macfadyen as Athos, and Ray Stevenson as Porthos, the “Three Musketeers are joined by Logan Lerman as D’Artagnan. Together they must stop a plot to throw England and France into war. Playing foil to the heroes are Orlando Bloom as the Duke of Buckingham, Milla Jovovich as Lady de Winter and Christop Waltz as Richelieu. Most of these actors have been far better in much better movies. However they aren’t given much to work with here. From the get go, the story feels flat. Again, its all been done before. Speaking of Orlando Bloom, it’s obvious he wanted to play a villain but his character is so poorly written, you kind of feel sorry for him.

Some of the fights are fun to watch but most of them are so orchestrated and choreographed that they fail to remain interesting for long. Then there is Jovovich’s character, who is able to jump up, pause in mid air and spin around and do all these fantastical things that never really make any sense. She and Bloom’s character are trying to take over the thrown. It’s all pretty boring. Everything is over produced, including the hot air balloon barge ships that make no sense.

As many times as “The Three Musketeers” has been done, why do they always stick to the same story? They always talk about the great Musketeers and all their crazy adventures but yet we get stuck with the same crap every time. A lot of production value here, but that’s about all it has going for it. This is the perfect example of a movie that would have been ripe for going back to some old school filmmaking techniques instead of trying to wedge in a bunch of cool modern-esque weapons and fighting styles. They clearly have no business in a movie like this.

When will Hollywood learn?

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