The Three Musketeers (12A)

In this busy remake of the repeatedly remade The Three Musketeers we have a strong cast of recognisable genre actors. We have the trio of Matthew Macfadyen (Robin Hood, 2010) as Athos, Luke Evans (The Raven) as Arimus and Ray Stevenson (Thor) as Porthos and as a group they are excellent, each seizing upon the clichéd aspects of their fictional characters and not over doing it. Then comes the fourth musketeer Logan Lerman as the arrogant D’Artagnan and even after his experiences as Percey Jackson, in Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief, he fails to convince for much of the time, the fine gloss of this youthful American somehow out of sync with the rough to extravagant French setting.

The English Director, Paul W.S. Anderson, brings along a number of external influences to this film. His obvious casting of his wife Milla Jovovich (Resident Evil) as villainess Milady de Winter, who excels at the action sequences but falls short on the acting, and his casting of English actors and notably the comedian James Corden as Planchet, who’s style of comedy sits awkwardly in the flow of the story. But this trusty and put upon side-kick follows the four Musketeers as they seek to recover a diamond necklace to save the Honour of Queen Anne and prevent war in Europe.

There are two problems with this updated version though, aside from the sudden invention of incredibly manoeuvrable airships. Orlando Bloom as the Duke of Buckingham fails at being a baddy and only achieves a poor imitation of Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow and Christoph Waltz (The Green Hornet) as Richelieu is weak. Aside from this when the Musketeers are on screen they are entertaining and this just about holds the story together.

56/100

A Thousand Words (12A)

A toned, young looking, Eddie Murphy is the main feature of this one concept comedy directed by TV producer and relatively experienced Film Director Brian Robbins. Robbins has a connection with Murphy and understands his visual and vocal dexterity, which is evident in A Thousand Words, and he has also worked with him on Norbit and the slightly funnier Meet Dave.

In this straight forward film the character Jack McCall relies on his ‘gift of the gab’ to sign up authors for a publishing company but he has his priorities all mixed up and it takes a magic tree and a spiritual leader played by a strangely hippy like Cliff Curtis (Sunshine) to trap him in what appears to be a magic curse where upon if he should utter more than a thousand words he will die. He has to then think very carefully about what he says to his wife Kerry Washington (Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer) and his colleagues.

As concepts go this one seems like an interesting premise but the problem is, and it is a big one with a film about words, is the script. Time and time again we understand that Murphy cannot say anything because the utterance of any words would shorten his life but when face with the need for just a couple of important words he fails to deliver. Surely a few well placed words is not too difficult to work out and it just frustrates the viewer rather than making them laugh.

The tragic nature of his curse is demonstrated, and Murphy show his talent, but this intimacy is short lived and we are again treated to the character’s, poorly directed, surprisingly volatile anger and the unfunny drama, after all this is a comedy. The one character who comes out of the film with much credit is Clark Duke (Kick-Ass), as Murphy’s PA, who is forging a bumbling sidekick type persona which is paying his acting career dividends.

42/100