The Three Musketeers
Nov. 14th, 2011 01:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniaIn 3D, with airships. Should probably have been billed in full as Dumas' The Three Musketeers + Assassin's Creed + Inception + Final Fantasy IX - acting. Some fine actors took part in this movie, and they were specifically instructed to keep it acting-free. Christoph Waltz couldn't quite hold the line; he had actual chemistry with Juno Temple**, who played Queen Anne, and I think it threw him off. Other than that unfortunate blip, though, everyone stayed safely within the chewy camp / delicious cheese / parody skit night triangle.
The latter-day Sherlock Holmes adaptations are the obvious benchmarks here. Like the RDJ movie-verse, the more of a canon nerd you are, the more there is to pay attention to, because the script is at all times either being authentic to the throwaway (eg. Planchet) or subverting/undercutting the original for the lulz (eg. the Buckingham/Anne "romance"). Analogously to Moffat and Gatiss - who talk constantly about capturing the mood of the Rathbone films - the people who made THE THREE MUSKETEERS 3D clearly consider the nec plus ultra of screen Dumas adaptations to be:
1) The 70s Russian teleseries, i.e. the one with The Soundtrack Made From Electric Guitars(tm)
2) The 80s Japanese animated series, i.e. the one where D'Artagnan had a boy sidekick and Aramis was a girl trying to get revenge for her dead fiance
I would be lying if I said I didn't agree with them. As well as a related principle applicable to Hollywood in particular:
3) English-language adaptations of The Three Musketeers must feature a constellation of bad accent work calibrated to elicit the maximum amount of hilarity from Colonel Hans Landa
The problem is that, in retrospect, people assume the success of the RDJ Holmes movie and assimilate its influence accordingly, whereas upfront that film succeeded at the box office for two reasons that had nothing to do with its content: it involved RDJ, and it was the obvious second choice at theatres that December when Avatar sold out. What people thought of it after they saw it is a whole other question, but I slot both these movies as playing to minority aesthetics within the hardcore fandom itself. Like sororial unit, for instance, who has wanted Dumas to beef up the Athos/Milady moe since she was 7. It's what Kate Beaton does to History, and she's a NYT best seller.
When I think of Dumas' original book, these days, I see it bookended by two set pieces: D'Artagnan's arrival in Paris, which gets my vote as the single best action sequence (setup and payoff) ever committed to paper, and Milady's seduction and corruption of Felton, at the very least a milestone in the historical development of the psychological thriller. The former is essentially the action set piece equivalent of Hamlet's "2B or not 2B" speech -- the thing itself can't really be ruined, what I'm watching for in an adaptation is execution. Forex, Aramis's characterization. It's sort of like coming up with a new take on Mercutio or Malvolio: most swing too hard (IMO) toward ladykiller!Aramis or politician!Aramis, but this is the first time I've seen Aramis as, basically, Arthur out of Inception. What's more frightening about this is that it immediately and plausibly makes Athos Cobb, Milady a telescoping of Mal and Eames, and D'Artagnan Ariadne. Which leaves me with an unrequited desire to see Ellen Page play Katherine out of The Privilege of the Sword.
Other thoughts:
1) On top of it all, this movie turned out to be an effective use of 3D technology - better than anything I've seen since Tron, and much brighter.
2) Subverts Screenwriting 101 (eg. the plan that we hear about must go wrong) as much as Dumas
3) At one point I was like, "Would it be churlish to mention that this airship battle is BS because *****", and then they actually *****.
4) The first Hollywood version of the book that sets up sequels! (Improving on Dumas, because I think even Dumas would rather have had Milady herself than un version en laid.) I am excite. At this point they could plausibly do Bragelonne and Iron Mask without the timeskip, or any attention to IRL historical events whatsoever. XD
** Lola The Nymphet from Atonement! I checked on imdb, it drove me nuts for the entire film that I couldn't place her. (I also never connected Lola The Nymphet with Celia St. Trinian's.) This despite the fact that I think she was doing the same voice.
The latter-day Sherlock Holmes adaptations are the obvious benchmarks here. Like the RDJ movie-verse, the more of a canon nerd you are, the more there is to pay attention to, because the script is at all times either being authentic to the throwaway (eg. Planchet) or subverting/undercutting the original for the lulz (eg. the Buckingham/Anne "romance"). Analogously to Moffat and Gatiss - who talk constantly about capturing the mood of the Rathbone films - the people who made THE THREE MUSKETEERS 3D clearly consider the nec plus ultra of screen Dumas adaptations to be:
1) The 70s Russian teleseries, i.e. the one with The Soundtrack Made From Electric Guitars(tm)
2) The 80s Japanese animated series, i.e. the one where D'Artagnan had a boy sidekick and Aramis was a girl trying to get revenge for her dead fiance
I would be lying if I said I didn't agree with them. As well as a related principle applicable to Hollywood in particular:
3) English-language adaptations of The Three Musketeers must feature a constellation of bad accent work calibrated to elicit the maximum amount of hilarity from Colonel Hans Landa
The problem is that, in retrospect, people assume the success of the RDJ Holmes movie and assimilate its influence accordingly, whereas upfront that film succeeded at the box office for two reasons that had nothing to do with its content: it involved RDJ, and it was the obvious second choice at theatres that December when Avatar sold out. What people thought of it after they saw it is a whole other question, but I slot both these movies as playing to minority aesthetics within the hardcore fandom itself. Like sororial unit, for instance, who has wanted Dumas to beef up the Athos/Milady moe since she was 7. It's what Kate Beaton does to History, and she's a NYT best seller.
When I think of Dumas' original book, these days, I see it bookended by two set pieces: D'Artagnan's arrival in Paris, which gets my vote as the single best action sequence (setup and payoff) ever committed to paper, and Milady's seduction and corruption of Felton, at the very least a milestone in the historical development of the psychological thriller. The former is essentially the action set piece equivalent of Hamlet's "2B or not 2B" speech -- the thing itself can't really be ruined, what I'm watching for in an adaptation is execution. Forex, Aramis's characterization. It's sort of like coming up with a new take on Mercutio or Malvolio: most swing too hard (IMO) toward ladykiller!Aramis or politician!Aramis, but this is the first time I've seen Aramis as, basically, Arthur out of Inception. What's more frightening about this is that it immediately and plausibly makes Athos Cobb, Milady a telescoping of Mal and Eames, and D'Artagnan Ariadne. Which leaves me with an unrequited desire to see Ellen Page play Katherine out of The Privilege of the Sword.
Other thoughts:
1) On top of it all, this movie turned out to be an effective use of 3D technology - better than anything I've seen since Tron, and much brighter.
2) Subverts Screenwriting 101 (eg. the plan that we hear about must go wrong) as much as Dumas
3) At one point I was like, "Would it be churlish to mention that this airship battle is BS because *****", and then they actually *****.
4) The first Hollywood version of the book that sets up sequels! (Improving on Dumas, because I think even Dumas would rather have had Milady herself than un version en laid.) I am excite. At this point they could plausibly do Bragelonne and Iron Mask without the timeskip, or any attention to IRL historical events whatsoever. XD
** Lola The Nymphet from Atonement! I checked on imdb, it drove me nuts for the entire film that I couldn't place her. (I also never connected Lola The Nymphet with Celia St. Trinian's.) This despite the fact that I think she was doing the same voice.
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no subject
Date: 2011-11-14 10:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-14 08:53 pm (UTC)My sister and I basically spent the entire movie being like WTFLOL and making nuisances of ourselves in the theatre. There were only about ten people in the screening late on a Sunday night, mind you.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-17 05:26 am (UTC)My first reaction to that was 'ZOMG I KNOW THIS ONE!!'. My second reaction was 'OH THAT was what her deal was'. Yays for the really old animated series (that I never actually finished)~!
When I think of Dumas' original book, these days, I see it bookended by two set pieces: D'Artagnan's arrival in Paris, which gets my vote as the single best action sequence (setup and payoff) ever committed to paper, and Milady's seduction and corruption of Felton, at the very least a milestone in the historical development of the psychological thriller.
ZOMG. XD My two favorite parts of the book!
Aw. Now I wanna watch this thing. Just for the lulz, if nothing else. :D
no subject
Date: 2011-11-17 09:37 pm (UTC)In my pre-teens I didn't like the anime, actually - I was a lot more humourless about canon back then.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-17 11:49 pm (UTC)I was exposed to anime because that's all there was to watch -- when I was little, the TV programs didn't start until like, 5 or 6 PM and those were always the Japanese anime (and Korean, when I was a bit older). Funny thing is, I didn't even really consider them anime until I was muuuuch older and went, d'oh.
Now manga I plain hated until, er, 11? I was a disdainful little bookworm. XD
no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 04:01 am (UTC)1) The 70s Russian teleseries, i.e. the one with The Soundtrack Made From Electric Guitars(tm)
I've been reading your entries for what - ten years now? That is the single most unexpected sentence and mention and reference I have *ever* come across on LJ.
Also, you mean, you've actually like, watched some of the Soviet teleseries?!?
[For us who did grow up with that thing on Soviet TV once every few months, it is pretty much imprinted in our brains and retinas.]
no subject
Date: 2011-11-15 05:19 am (UTC)drinkingwith her Russian computer engineer(tm) of a dad, right? XD;I've watched chunks of Soviet cartoons about bears and hedgehogs, TV series about Catherine the Great... it goes on. I didn't watch the whole of the Three Musketeers adaptation, but I (and my sister) also have the novel pretty much memorized since my pre-teens - like, there were no subtitles, but this was not a case where I needed any. And yes, pretty much every Russian person I've ever met knew the thing off by heart, so in aggregate Russians kind of are the Dumas fans to watch out for IMO. One of them/you was involved in writing this new movie.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-17 10:28 pm (UTC)drinkingis one thing, actually watching stuff that like my entire generation grew up on - another thing entirely!For shits and giggles and also lulz, you do realize that I.G's Chevalier from a few years ago - is essentially the Catherine the Great series (well, OK, it's actually more about Elizabeth)...only from the French side?
(...and for the max lulz, for our end-of-summer talent show in the USSR Railroads Ministry Summer Camp, in 1989, was it, the skit a couple of my friends and I did was totally a half-assed attempt at doing a karaoke of the theme from that show!)
...also, I guess vaguely embarrassing admission - I never really read the novel, but just assumed that the Soviet series kept fairly closely to the text, except of course for the Electric Guitars. How totally off was I?