Internets, yesterday was the day of cheese. Lunch? Rainforest Cafe. Dinner? IHOP. (I ordered the cheesecake pancakes. Let it be known I have no shame.) And in between an excellent school visit to Arcadia High School and a reading/signing/discussion of tactics during the inevitable zombie apocalypse at Changing Hands bookstore, BFF Robyn and her excellent husband Jameson and I went to The Three Musketeers.

Yes. The one with ORLANDO BLOOM, and airships.

We gleefully anticipated that it would be gloriously, hilariously awful. Mockery is a common pastime in the Fleming-York-Healey household, and if we do not have sufficient outside targets we inevitably turn upon each other.

Our expectations were exceeded in the movie's first two scenes.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT NARRATOR: "... once-peaceful France..."
ME: ...what*.

ATHOS: *rises from the filthy canals of Venice, clad in black leather wetsuit. Brandishes six-shooter crossbows and kills several guards in one blow*
ROBYN: *hyperventilates*

Oh, Internets. My one sorrow is that the movie was not showing on iMax. This film could only have been improved by splashing its amazingness over a screen six stories high, possibly surrounded by jeering cherubs cast in bronze.

Here, then, is our thoroughly charmed recap of this cinematic masterpiece:



ACT ONE

NARRATOR: France is in trouble, oh noes! Only the King's Musketeers, of whom there are apparently an entire three, plus their awesome girlfriend, can possibly save the nation from impending invasions!

ATHOS: *wetsuit* *six-shooter crossbows* *dramatic revelation of face*
MILADY: *points gun at his head* Well hey there, handsome.
ATHOS: *points knife at her belly* Did you seduce the key out of the bishop, my true love who will never betray me?
MILADY: Duh, I am awesome. Kissing?
ATHOS: Sure!

ARAMIS: *swoops from high roof to gondola, dispatches many guards, retrieves key from drunken lord formerly sporting with gondola prostitute*
GONDOLA PROSTITUTE: Who are you?
ARAMIS: Apparently, I'm Batman. And I have ten minutes. Kissing?
GONDOLA PROSTITUTE: Sure!

ITALIAN LORD: Hah! I have caught you! And chained you to the walls!
PORTHOS: You haven't caught me. I've caught you.
ITALIAN LORD: OH SHIT HE'S INEXPLICABLY LOOSE. And he has my key!
PORTHOS: Headbutt?
ITALIAN LORD: Su- wait!
PORTHOS: Waiting is for people way less awesome than me, my friend!

The Three Musketeers Plus Milady Who Will Never Betray Them use their keys to open Leonardo di Vinci's Secret Vault of Airship Plans. Milady scorns the Subtle Boobytraps and evades them by... running faster than cannon shot. Okay!

ATHOS: You're so awesome.
MILADY: I know. Let's all drink to that!
ATHOS: I love you.
MILADY: I love you too. Incidentally, I've just betrayed you. To an English noble. Who wants to use these airship plans to wage war on France.
ATHOS: ...
MILADY: It's not personal! No hard feelings, right?

ORLANDO BLOOM: MWAHAHA. It is ME! And my hair!
ATHOS: The Duke of Buckingham! Who in this version is a bad guy!
ORLANDO BLOOM: MWAHAHA. In case you were wondering, the toxin was on your cups, not the wine! It was designed to dissolve in liquid!
ROBYN: No one was wondering that.
ME: The endless explication of trivial detail is the one thing they chose to keep from the original?
ORLANDO BLOOM: MWAHAHA. This scenery is DELICIOUS.

Milady and ORLANDO BLOOM walk off with the plans. The fallen Musketeers are UNDONE!

This is, in restrospect, the most coherent plot segment of the movie.

Then D'Artagnan and his improbably accented parents turn up, and the Musketeers are reunited during a rousing brawl and a lot of casual murder! Sadly, D'Artagnan is the only blight on this movie - well, that and the script. So any time D'Artagnan has lines the effect was quadruple bad. Plus, he has one of those faces that goes from completely blank to I'M ACTING, with nothing in between, and I can't be having with that.

Since D'Artagnan is technically the main character, his total repulsiveness might normally be a problem, but this is some of the stuff that happens in the rest of the movie:

MILADY: How to get the Queen's jewels from her heavily guarded chambers? Why, I must dispatch a squadron of guards on the roof with their own weapons, take off my dress and zipline down to a handy balcony in my gorgeous underthings, CGI my way through the late Rennaisance version of alarm lasers - WHICH IS INVISIBLE RAZOR WIRE - and steal the goods.
ME: God, you're awesome.
MILADY: I do my burlesque assassin best. Now, to plant them in the possession of the Duke of Buckingham, ORLANDO BLOOM! Double crossing is the most fun. Or is this quadruple crossing? I lose count.

ATHOS: The jewels will be hidden in the Duke of Buckingham's private vault in the Tower of London.
ROBYN: *finally loses the battle to moderate her hysterical whooping*

ATHOS: We have stolen an airship which we inexplicably know how to sail! And it has a convenient bay for the hoisting of carriages containing awesome burlesque assassins and their purloined jewels. Get out, former love.
MILADY: Are you going to decapitate me, like in the book?
ATHOS: Don't be ridiculous, I'm going to make you walk the plank. Much more dramatic!
MILADY: Fuck that noise. *jumps before he can make her do anything*
ARAMIS: As a former priest, I must say that suicide was her best possible option in the situation.
ATHOS: She did it for me! So that I wouldn't have to shoot her if she refused!
ROBYN: I bet she did it because she has a parachute under her skirt.
ME: Because she is awesome.

ATHOS: Do you guys know what's more fun than a stolen airship with a crows-nest gatling gun and a random flamethrower?
PORTHOS: Two airships? One of which has a girl tied to the figurehead?
ATHOS: Yes! They should fight.
ARAMIS: Can we engage in battle in the middle of a thunderstorm?
ATHOS: Certainly.
PORTHOS: Can we leap across the gaping void and slide down their balloon with our daggers?
ATHOS: I think we have established that nothing is too far beyond the bounds of reason for this movie. For example, ten minutes ago I sacrificed my one true love because she had betrayed France. Two minutes after that, I told D'Artagnan to choose the girl over the future of our country. Get on with your leaping selves, my friends.
D'ARTAGNAN: Am I going to get any lines in this recap?
ME: No.

ARAMIS: Do you know the only possible conclusion to this airship battle?
PORTHOS: Ramming the other airship...
ARAMIS: ...and forcing it to impale itself upon the spire of Notre Dame.
ATHOS: You guys are the best. If that youngster regains consciousness I suppose he can have a dramatic swordfight on the spine of the cathedral roof.
ARAMIS: Ugh, he'll probably save himself from a fatal fall by desperately clutching at a gargoyle or something.
PORTHOS: I bet he wins through some flashy display of pure luck, too.
D'ARTAGNAN: Seriously, can't I-
ME: No.

And then the jewels were restored! The day was saved! The Cardinal defeated! The King and Queen dancing in the middle of the gardens of Versailles (what) in the middle of the day for some fucking reason!

But DUN DUN DUN.

MILADY: What the heck? I'm wet and my hair looks awful.
ORLANDO BLOOM: I'm hungry, and this scenery is so damn good. You and me and my hair and my fleet of ships and my fleet of airships are on our way to France. For REVENGE. HAHAHA. NOMNOMNOM.
MOVIE: *ends*.

ROBYN: Sequel?
ME: Sequel!
BOTH OF US: *high-pitched noises discernible only to bats*

The historical content was ludicrous, the plot was incoherent, the King of France asked for romantic advice from a lowborn thug he'd just met who kept striking out with his OWN romantic interest, and the cliche-laden script's best line was, no lie, "You should have apologised to my horse."

It was utterly amazing and I'm going again. Gentles all, I beg of you, see this movie.

Finally, we feel it meet to apologise to the other two gentlemen in the theatre, who were forced to listen to our unrestrained howling.

Actually, Robyn feels it meet. I feel no such concern for gentlemen who, based on the number of times they laughed, ie, none, apparently regarded this film as a searing indictment of the horrors of war or some shit.





*Robyn wishes it known that when I say "what", it is not a short, sharp exclamation of disbelief ending with a fricative (WUT), but a long, drawn-out, multi-vowel expression of horror. Something like "Hwhah-AWWWW-tuh?" She had ample opportunity to study this phenomenon during the film.