THE THREE MUSKETEERS

(Paul W.S. Anderson, 2011) By following the broader outlines of Alexandre Dumas' classic tale in his adaptation, Anderson just might have succeeded in making The Three Musketeers his most roundly entertaining film. Dumas' novel is so familiar that the strength of its archetypes and beautifully simple plot construction are beyond doubt. The way principle hero D'Artagnan (Logan Lerman, who plays him as a bland, sexless, even Bieberesque teen idol type) meets each of the three in turn, all of the heroes defined along the way, then teams up with them against Richlieu's Guard, is a miraculous piece of storytelling, and it survives more or less unchanged through every adaptation. Here Anderson casts three beefy Brits as the legendary Musketeers. Athos (Matthew Macfayden), Porthos (Ray Stevenson) and Aramis (Luke Evans) are introduced as a sort of elite commando squad, on a mission in Venice to steal some old plans by DaVinci for a flying war machine. Here Anderson establishes the films distinctive aesthetic; composing his shots in 3D, he emphasises the awesome scale and elaborate ostentatiousness of the royal buildings which house much of the story. He has always had a good way with a clean, clear action sequence, and here he keeps the swordplay visceral and simple, often using slow motion to punctuate a particularly well-choreographed passage. There is also a definite steampunk element to the design of gadgets and weapons, from the airships which are the most significant departure from Dumas to Athos' clockwork ninja gadgetry in the opening scene. The characters are generally simple, there for their impact in the action scenes and the varying shades they bring. The Musketeers are differentiated through their fighting styles - Athos is efficient, brutal, and Macfayden plays him with a mournful air, while Stevenson's brawny Porthos is all jolly brute force and Evans makes Aramis a precise, stylish fighter and the quietest, most cerebral of the three. They are joined in the action scenes by Anderson's muse, Milla Jovovich, as Milady, here an ass-kicking acrobatic spy with a penchant for betrayal. Anderson and his screenwriters (among them Andrew Davies, who has much experience of adapting classic novels) follow much of Dumas' plot and add in their own elements and twists. The immature but goodhearted King (Freddie Fox, comic to just the right degree) is there, Richlieu (Christoph Waltz, on cruise control) is the evil mastermind, and D'Artagnan has the usual love interest in the form of the Queen's Lady-in-waiting, Constance (Gabriella Wilde, whose pretty woodenness matches Lerman's blandness). The villains are the strongest element; Orlando Bloom has a high old time as the foppish, moustache- twirling Buckingham, and Mads Mikkelsen gives eyepatch-wearing Rochefort a scarily dead-eyed intensity. It is all nicely paced, ripping at speed through the story and forcing much of the plot through action scenes, there are several good gags (James Corden plays the comic relief), it always looks wonderful, and if it never matches Richard Lester's classic 1970s Musketeers movies, it is a solid, occasionally inspired attempt at a modern spin on this classic family adventure film.

BLITZ

(Elliott Lester, 2011) It is perhaps a little surprising that films as utterly generic as Blitz still get made. That may be unfair. While the main plot thread here is unbelievably familiar and dull in genre terms - a gruff, uncompromisingly violent Detective hunts a maniacal serial killer on a cop-killing spree - the proliferation of sub-plots suggest an entirely different, more interesting film. Unfortunately, all they do is suggest. Set in a London captured by director Lester as a grimy, coldly magnificent concrete metropolis - he shoots architecture far more sensitively than he does people - it initially seems like a Jason Statham vehicle-by-numbers. The first scene finds Statham's Detective Brant witness some teen thugs attempting to break into a car outside his flat in the middle of the night. Of course he picks up a hurl - an excuse for the screenplay to pay some tribute to the source novel, by Irish crime author Ken Bruen, as Brant lectures the criminals on hurling being an Irish game mixing "hockey and murder" - and ventures out to inflict some punishment. But Statham, while undoubtedly the lead character, is only given a shade more screen time than the others who crowd the narrative here; Paddy Considine's Detective Nash, who wins Brant's grudging respect as a cop despite being "a poofter", Zawe Ashton's crackhead young PC Falls, Mark Rylance as a newly widowed Police Commander, and of course Aidan Gillen, never less than utterly over the top as the killer, Weiss. Then there are name actors in even smaller parts; Luke Evans as a Detective who gets involved with Falls and David Morrissey as a tabloid hack contacted by the killer. That all makes the film - a snappy 97 minutes - a thoroughly overstuffed bird, struggling to finish it's story lines and sacrificing any depth in, well, all of them. The cop vs killer plotline gets more time than anything else, but even then it feels thin, lacking the emotional weight or even narrative hook which might make it interesting. As it is, Gillen's charismatic hamming and Statham's reliable action-lead brooding make it merely watchable as we wait fortheir ultimate showdown. Considine, one fine monologue aside, is largely wasted along with everybody else. The action scenes are few - this is a thriller, not an action film - but nicely handled, and the whole thing is reassuringly slick and expensive-looking. What it reminded me of was Danny Cannon's forgotten Young Americans; an audition piece, awkwardly grafting American genre cliches onto a British base with questionable results.