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Franco-American relations are today at their lowest point since WW2 and their sudden cooling have surprised even the most informed political pundits. On the other hand, in terms of culture, France and USA weren't exactly on speaking terms much earlier. This was reflected in French cultural chauvinism - endless campaigns to purge French vocabulary of all English-sounding words and save French cinema industry from Hollywood onslaught. Sometimes Hollywood itself gave good reasons to French officials to preach cultural protectionism; one of them was Disney's 1993 version of *The Three Musketeers*, directed by Stephen Herek. That film, based on the famous novel of French author Alexandre Dumas pere, was subject of the official protest by French Ministry of Culture; French officials didn't like many liberties David Loughery's script had taken with source novel and French history.

The plot, set in early 17th Century France, begins with D'Artagnan (played by Chris O'Donnell), young Gascogne man who travels to Paris, partly in order to escape relatives of a girl he had seduced, partly in order to avenge his father. His ultimate aim, however, is to join Musketeers - elite military unit  entrusted with protecting King Louis (played by Hugh O'Connor). Unfortunately, King's evil prime minister Cardinal Richelieu (played by Tim Curry) has disbanded Musketeers. Three of them - Athos (played by Kiefer Sutherland), Porthos (played by Oliver Platt) and Aramis (played by Charlie Sheen) - have disobeyed order and now live as outlaws. D'Artagnan joins them and slowly unveils Richelieu's conspiracy - evil cardinal, together with English Duke of Buckingham and with the help of his top spy Lady De Winter (played by Rebecca De Mornay), wants to replace King Louis and marry his beautiful wife, Queen Anne (played by Gabrielle Anwar).

*The Three Musketeers* is a novel that turned out to be very popular among filmmakers and gave inspiration for at least two great film versions - Raoul Walsh's in 1948 and Richard Lester's in 1974. Unfortunately, director Stephen Herek and Disney modelled this film on *Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves*, one of the worst examples of Hollywood butchering European cultural heritage (comparisons are inevitable also due to Bryan Adams' playing song as part of soundtrack, just as he did in *Robin Hood*, here aided by Rod Stewart and Sting). The plot has only superficial resemblance with Dumas' story, and even less resemblance with 17th Century history. Casting, on the other hand, doesn't have much semblance with common sense - Chris O'Donnell is incredibly bland as D'Artagnan, and audience would need much more disbelief to suspend in order to accept Charlie Sheen and Kiefer Sutherland as musketeers. The action scenes – which are supposed to compensate flaws of plot and characterisation - are totally uninspired. To say that acting leaves something to be desired would be understatement - even such actresses like Gabrielle Anwar and Julie Delpy seem forgettable in this film. However, the real measure of this film's failure could be best seen in the fact that another Hollywood version of *The Three Musketeers* was made only eight years later. This is short time, even for current Hollywood remake standards, so we might conclude that 1993 version of *The Three Musketeers* is even more forgettable than usual.

RATING: 2/10 (-)



*(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on October 27th 2003)*

https://youtu.be/hcgzgqMX9ac

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Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/10057-the-three-musketeers 
Critic: A