Review of The Three Musketeers

This movie is so bad on so many levels. From the first scene, when D'Artagnan duels with an annoyingly shrill caricature (he didn't deserve to be called a character). His opponent is a blatant walking gay joke and is completely inappropriate for what pretends to be a family picture. Also out of place in a family picture were some of the violent images and the generous cleavage shots. Obviously the movie veers from the novel, but it veers so far that the book becomes source material in name only. Aramis is no longer the pious gentleman of Dumas' novel, but instead he is...well, Charlie Sheen with a Bible and cross. The plot is almost completely thrown out and the exact opposite of virtually everything in the book happens. Worst of all, Milady DeWinter is transformed from one of the most evil creatures ever into a sympathetic character who is not really bad and only dies because she chooses to sacrifice herself. The script, if it can even be called a script, is hopelessly corny. It feels like they were trying to do the kind of movie they ended up making with Pirates of the Caribbean but failed miserably. The screenwriter hacks it up, showing no knowledge of ballistics (for the last time, cannonballs DO NOT EXPLODE!), anatomy (a wound to the gut may be fatal, but it will not kill a man within a few seconds), or military procedures (the King's guards would be going into war with the King, not disbanding!), and certainly no knowledge of the Dumas novel. Some things were kept, those things being the three-way duel and the fact that Athos used to be married to Milady. That's pretty much it. Really. That's it. I know we can't expect a page for page adaptation, but this was just awful. Oliver Platt's performance as Porthos was the one good thing, and even then I think it was more Platt being himself than playing the character.