Avis Metacritic

The movie Musketeers most faithful to Dumas’ spirit didn’t arrive until director Richard Lester (A Hard Day’s Night) delivered The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers. Overflowing with Lester’s trademark irreverence and slapstick, these films still retain a vivid and bawdy period flavor.

Few adventure movies have such a heightened atmosphere of beauty, excitement and fun. [18 Apr 1999, p.34C]

Alexandre Dumas pere's 1844 novel has been filmed more than four dozen times, but this lavish and hilarious rendition is the pinnacle. [21 Sep 2007, p.38]

The Three Musketeers...is superficially little more than a high-spirited adventure in the form of a string of beautifully executed moments of physical comedy.

Here, writer Fraser and director Lester went back to the original and hewed closely to the source material, but adding a lot of fun. Some good slapstick combines with moments of real drama and menace to make this movie a winner.

A superb bit of tongue-in-cheekery, stylish and fun but also deeply affectionate. [11 Aug 1985, p.5]

The cast is good (though it remains very much Lester's film), the fights appropriately energetic, and it all moves along at a fair pace, sprinkled with a number of good gags.

The Three Musketeers take very well to Richard Lester’s provocative version that does not send it up but does add comedy to this adventure tale [by Alexandre Dumas].

Mr. Lester's interpretation of The Three Musketeers looks like an evening in a bump-o-car arena, with magnificently costumed people in place of cars. The adventures are less swashbuckle than slapstick.

Lester's decorative clutter is the best thing about the film: he loves scurrilous excess. But the whole thing feels hectic and forced. You want some gallantry and charm; you don't want joke, joke, joke.