The Three Musketeers (1993)

Watch Movies TV -***DISCLAIMER*** The following review is entirely my opinion. If you comment (which I encourage you to do) be respectful. If you don't agree with my opinion (or other commenters), that's fine. To each their own. These reviews are not meant to be statements of facts or endorsements, I am just sharing my opinions and my perspective when watching the film and is not meant to reflect how these films should be viewed. Finally, the reviews are given on a scale of 0-5. 0, of course, being unwatchable. 1, being terrible. 2, being not great. 3, being okay. 4, being great and 5, being epic! And if you enjoy these reviews feel free to share them and follow the blog or follow me on Twitter (@RevRonster) for links to my reviews and the occasional live-Tweet session of the movie I'm watching! All for one and one for another movie, please?

The Three Musketeers (1993) – 2 out of 5

I’ve been under a lot of stress lately because my job has been crazy busy and my performance and writing schedule has been hectic, so I’ve been turning to junk food to try and help me manage.  It’s a terrible way to go about it but my exercise schedule (which is also crazy) isn’t exactly cutting the stress right now.  One of my go-to junk food options is a 3 Musketeers bar and, while eating one, I was reminded of the Disney movie from the 90s.  I haven’t seen this one in some time so I decided to revisit it…and use it as an excuse to write an awkward opening paragraph that involves telling you too much about me.  Oh, also, I really didn’t think the movie was that great.

Three blades, three musketeers?  Coincidence?
Probably.

Cardinal Richelieu (Tim Curry) is plotting behind the back of the King of France with the help of the villainous Captain Rochefort (Michael Wincott).  In his efforts, he has the Musketeers, the group loyal to and in charge of protecting the king, disbanded.  Three Musketeers; Athos (Kiefer Sutherland), Aramis (Charlie Sheen) and Porthos (Oliver Platt), decide to ignore the order and refuse to relinquish their duties.  Now being hunted by Richelieu’s men, the group find themselves meeting up with a young hopeful who hopes to be a Musketeer himself; D’Artagnan (Chris O’Donnell).  Together, they seek to uncover the plot and restore the Musketeers and to protect the king.

But before they save the day, they pose for the photo on their Christian
rock album.

I have very vague memories of watching this movie when it came out and pretty much the only thing that stuck with me was a moment where Porthos is mocking the flourishes of a highly skilled and flashy swordsman.  That is pretty much it.  Re-watching it now, I realized that this might have to do with the fact the film really isn’t that interesting or attention grabbing.  Sure, it has some moments of fun and there are elements of its production that are nice and work but, overall, the film is just kinda bland.

A day will come when people will genuinely wonder why Charlie Sheen was
a star and why we allowed him to be one in the first place.

Curry is Curry in this film and that's a good thing.

The highlights of this film include various members of the cast.  Michael Wincott is genuinely enjoyable as the henchman to Cardinal Richelieu and his intimidating demeanor makes for a bad guy that you enjoy hating.  Additionally, the villain of the Cardinal himself is pretty entertaining because it’s Tim Curry in the role.  I honestly don’t need to say more because that guy is always great.  On the Musketeers side, I really enjoyed the performances of Kiefer Sutherland and Oliver Platt.  Sutherland does a great job of bring forth the weight the character needed and has the natural charisma to be the lead Musketeer and Platt is doing a decent job of providing humor.  Sadly, that’s kinda where the good things I found in this movie end.

The facial hair screams "bad guy" louder than the eye patch.

The rest of the film is just kinda uninteresting to me.  There are no real decent action scenes and the few swordfights that are delivered are, honestly, pretty unimpressive, and the plot of Cardinal Richelieu’s attempt to backstab the king never really felt that dire.  However, the worst part of the whole movie is D’Artagnan and Chris O’Donnell’s performance.  The character is such a despicable and cocky chump that it was impossible to care about him.  While, in theory, he’s supposed to learn humility and be a better person by the end of the film, he never really feels this way due to O’Donnell’s performance.  The arrogance and swagger is still there and O’Donnell never can achieve the balance of making the character confident instead of narcissistic.  The character is the center of the story and having him both written and performed poorly really made it hard to become invested in his journey and, in turn, get invested in this film.

I don't want to be mean but he really is just hard to watch in this one.

The Three Musketeers ultimately feels like a forgettable feature.  Yeah, it had moments of entertainment value but these moments were small and fleeting.  Having a main character that was too unlikable to bother investing in wasn’t helping things.  Most of it just wasn’t that interesting and it was really hard to not overlook that the French fighters were all speaking with American accents.