Bad Movie Tuesday – The Three Musketeers (1993)

By Erk H.

One of the beautiful things about streaming is digging up “classics” to watch with the family. Occasionally, we strike family movie night gold with fun flicks like Heavyweights (1995) and The Great Outdoors (1998), among others. 

A few times, the picks fell flat. Most recently, Disney’s The Three Musketeers (1993). I had vaguely remembered it being a big summer blockbuster with the ubiquitous power ballad “All for Love” all over the radio. It was the 90s with big ensemble casts, star-studded soundtracks, flashy marketing, and very little interest in staying faithful to the source material (think 1998’s Godzilla). We figured that it would be a fun, comic adventure for a fun movie night. The IMDB description summarizes the movie as “In France, 1625. Young d’Artagnan heads to Paris to join the Musketeers, but the evil cardinal has disbanded them. d’Artagnan meets Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, three rogue musketeers, and joins them on their quest to save the king and country.”

D’Artagnan, played by Chris O’Donnell, told the three Musketeers that “I may not wear a tunic, but I have a heart of a Musketeer” as he joined the cause. Well, we at Movies Films & Flix don’t wear tunics either, but we have the heart to advise letting this movie sink into the depths of the Disney+ catalogue.

It starts off weird right out of the gate. Tim Curry, the evil Cardinal Richelieu, murders a prisoner begging for his life for no reason, just to show the audience how evil he is. That scene is immediately followed by a cut to a beautiful countryside field with uplifting music as d’Artagnan duels a rich guy who claims he was intimate with his sister. The duel transitions into a chase sequence punctuated with slapstick humor, heavy objects falling on horseback riders, and a big comic wipeout with the pursuer landing on his backside.

Tonal inconsistencies plague the movie. It was supposed to be a fun flick with lovable rogues. Instead, we got hopscotch between a murder-y flick where henchmen get stabbed during hand-to-hand fighting and back to lighthearted banter and womanizing. It’s one thing if it’s like any of the recent Netflix action movies with Chris Hemsworth or Charlize Theron among others whacking hundreds of people. Audiences watch them especially for thrilling action sequences. The Three Musketeers tried to be more in the same vein as Star Wars with nameless, faceless storm troopers getting blasted with sci-fi “pew pews.” At least in Star Wars, audiences can suspend belief because it’s an outer space world where we’re invested in the characters and the fate of the galaxy is at stake. Another example is a scene with Kiefer Sutherland’s Athos and Charlie Sheen’s Aramis where they’re sitting at a table with a dead guy lying on top whilst spouting witty barbs at Michael Wincott, who brilliantly played other villains in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, The Crow, Metro, and more, but who was relegated to the “Diet Coke of Evil” in this movie.

The other major criticism is that anything interesting about the characters was swallowed up by the enormity of the sets, costumes, music and overall spectacle. We’re not asking for a ton of character development in a summer blockbuster, but this thing was devoid of any personality. The Musketeers had a few general traits. Athos (Sutherland) is the serious one with emotional depth. Porthos is funny (Oliver Platt gave the best performance of the movie), and Aramis (Sheen) is supposed to be like, well, real-life Charlie Sheen.

The writers tried to cram in the cornerstones of the book including the Milady de Winter storyline. A quick Google search shares that Milady, played by Rebecca De Mornay, was a dangerous, manipulative antagonist whose downfall was a big part of the original book. To summarize, Milady and Athos (Sutherland) were married, and Athos discovered that she bore the “fleur-de-lis brand” on her shoulder for committing serious crimes, and he had turned her over to the authorities many years ago. She escaped and was working for the Cardinal and later committed suicide in the book (and movie). That “story within a story” would have been much more interesting for a movie. Cramming it into the plot left the audience who hadn’t read the book wondering, “What the heck? Isn’t this a Disney movie mass-marketed to families as a fun, swashbuckling adventure?”

To conclude, The Three Musketeers isn’t spectacularly bad, and it’s not bad enough to become a cult classic. It tried to be something for everyone but instead resulted in something forgettable. Instead, try out Heavyweights, The Pacifier, or Galaxy Quest for a family movie night.

Make sure to listen to the MFF podcast episodes Mark and I recorded about The Pacifier and The Great Outdoors.