Anyone who read my theatrical review of this film knows that I did not care for it. In fact, I vehemently opposed its very existence; which is out of character for me as a critic.

Normally, I can find some silver lining, something redeemable in a movie but after the screening of this latest version of The Three Musketeers I was left with nothing. Aside from thinking that a lot of the visual effects looked great on a big screen there was nothing at all positive about that viewing experience for me.

I thought perhaps upon a second viewing, this time at home and on Blu-ray, that maybe something new would come to light… sadly that was not the case. I was once again disappointed by the miscasting, annoyed by the implausible leaps in technology and ultimately sad to see such an amazing story from a classic work of literature destroyed by the over mining of material that Hollywood has become famous for.

Much like the original story we see a young, eager D’Artagnan this time played by relative newcomer and Percy Jackson star Logan Lerman making the journey to Paris to become a member of the King’s Royal Guard, The Musketeers. Once there he has various run in’s with three men all of whom he challenges to a duel to atone for the offense he perceived. Of course they turn out to be Athos (Matthew Macfadyen), Porthos (Ray Stevenson) and Aramis (Luke Evans) and rather than kill each other they join forces against the evil Cardinal Richelieu’s (Christoph Waltz) guards.

From there the story is supposed to be about the Three Musketeers struggling to save the King and their country from a war with England instigated by the power hungry Cardinal who is intent on seizing power and deposing the young, naïve King. D’Artagnan, while determined to assist the Musketeers in their struggle also faces the challenge of avenging his fathers’ murder and proving himself worthy of the blue tunic he so desires.

That’s not what happens in this version. Instead, it becomes a weird 17th century combination of anOcean’s Eleven film with a planned heist and stolen diamonds, a James Bond movie with impressive new technology and gadgets and finally a bit of a Rom-Com version of Othello with a love sick King needing proof that he shouldn’t murder his wife for supposedly having been unfaithful. And oh yeah occasionally the Three Musketeers show up. They don’t have much to do or really any interest in being there, but I guess they figured, ‘since we’re in the title we might as well at least be seen once or twice.’

This movie is beyond ridiculous folks. I can’t stomach attacking it any further so please for a more detail character assassination please refer to my original theatrical review.

Special features are always a movies last chance to impress

an audience or to explain what their original vision was. The idea being that if they haven’t quite achieved it, at least if people understand what they were going for, maybe they’d be slightly more forgiving. Well, once again this would be swashbuckling film fails to score a touch.

Features on this Bu-ray disc are limited to a few very, very brief features discussing the building of some sets, Orlando Bloom talking about playing the Duke of Buckingham, and some other general behind-the-scenes stuff; none of which was that interesting.

We also have a host of deleted and extended scenes which to be honest I couldn’t even sit all the way through and commentaries that I most certainly did not take the time to listen to.

As much as I challenged myself to find something new and redeemable in this second viewing I was unable to do so. My original opinions only became all the more cemented in my mind. There is just no reason to ever see this movie.

If you haven’t seen the 1993 version with Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Oliver Platt, Rebecca De Mornay, Tim Curry and Chris O’Donnell though, that’s what you should be racing out to the stores to buy or searching Netflix to download! To this day it’s still one of my favorite action adventure films.