3 Musketeers

This film by low-budget direct-to-DVD house The Asylum is a mixed bag of silly, comic book action, uneven visual effects and even more uneven acting. The end result is ultimately a fun, if not altogether satisfying, time waster.

It's not a straight mockbuster of any "Three Musketeers" movie in Asylum's usual "Transmorphers" kind of way. Except for the title and some character names from the Dumas novel, the movie better resembles a "Charlie's Angels" film, as its plot centers around a team of action heroes attempting to stop a conspiracy to incite World War III.

The team code-named "Musketeers" consists of, predictably, spies whose own code names are Athos, Porthos and Aramis. They're joined later by an exotic-looking female spy named D'Artagnan who claims to be a direct descendant of the real one. Their enemy: A guy code-named "The Cardinal" (natch) who for reasons unclear wants to start a global war by killing the president.

The actors in the Musketeer roles are not too bad and actually appear to be having some fun, which is rare for The Asylum. Arguably the two sorest points in most Asylum productions is that their preposterous, low-budget movies are presented dead seriously, and that their has-been actors like Greg Evigan seem mortified to be appearing in them.

Not so here, where martial artist XIN is so charismatic as Athos you'll hope to see him in a better kung fu movie, lovely Michele Boyd as Aramis is reminiscent of Meg Ryan circa "Innerspace," Keith Allan channels Jeff Goldblum as brainy Porthos who spouts '80s pop culture references like "The light is green, the trap is clean," and Heather Hemmens (of the CW's "Hellcats") actually makes you believe a Costa Rican hottie could be the direct descendant of a 17th Century French guard.

But again, as with most Asylum movies, other cast members are so bad you'll wonder who on the production team they must be related to/have paid off/had sexual relations with to land their roles. Alan Rachins is so flat-out awful as the Cardinal he comes off as someone's old college acting teacher given the part as a favor. He pulls down every scene he's in so badly the movie actually appears to freeze-frame every time he comes on screen. Where's Barry Bostwick when you need him? Digital effects by Tiny Juggernaut are typically bargain basement, but not so much that they ruin the show. This is, after all, comic book melodrama, so it's OK by me if the jet planes and rockets look a little cartoony.

It's mindless fun that's worth a look on Netflix or maybe picked up used for a couple of bucks. Paying any more for it would be a bigger crime than World War III.

I had read some reviews for this film, both on here and on another site, so I was prepared for the worst but let me tell you it was even worse than I'd anticipated, much worse in fact. Try to imagine the worst film you've ever seen, multiply by a hundred and you're getting close to the depths that this film sunk to. I just wish that 0/10 (or even a minus score) was an option.

When the movie started I thought it might be worth a look. But 10 minutes into it I realized this was a new new level of bad theater.

The premise was hokey and the director was in love with a style of cinematographic where the shot pops to a zoom in. It was constant and annoying.

The moment I know this was the worst movie I seen this year was when they turned on the oven of an electric stove to blow up a house. This was the typical attention to detail the cast and director gave this movie. I saw no less than 6 sequences that were ripped off from other movies. And terribly reproduced as well.

Save your money and the hour and a half of your lives and skip seeing this film, unless you want to see how not to film and action movie.

Not the typical 'Three Musketeers' tale, but a modern revision starring Hemmens as a federal agent who enlists the eponymous trio of notorious international spies when she discovers a sinister inside plot to assassinate PotUS.

Former LA Law star Rachins has little to do but snarl and make threats as the principal villain (until he's called upon to throw some heavy haymakers late in the film), whilst ex Baywatch body Chokachi also features as a military turncoat. Rounding off the marquee names is veteran TV and film actor Steven Williams in an all-too-brief cameo early in the film as a conspiracy theorist.

The multi-talented quartet have chemistry, and their comic-book skills are never substantially challenged by the typically inept opponents who bumble from one botched assassination attempt to the next like keystone cops. Boyd in particular is engaging as an emotionless female Aramis, supremely confident in her appearance and fighting skills, she has a brutal hand to hand encounter with her leather-clad equivalent Smith that ends comically.

But despite some good intentions, and an occasional chuckle, it's still amateur hour displaying very limited imagination or technical skill, unlikely to make it into most living rooms except by mistake when you consider it's title and proximity to the release of the bigger, better known Hollywood remake.

This could have been an interesting movie if they kept to the original premise: transfer the Dumas story into modern times. Unfortunately this was not attempted, it is just a typical spy story along the lines of "find out about a conspiracy and stop it by some computer hacking and shoot-outs", just that some characters are named Athos, Porthos and Aramis. The original idea of "The Three Musketeers" - innocent country-side lad D'Artagnan comes to the big city Paris and learns a lot from three experienced fighters - is not used. The D'Artagnan we get here is a clever agent who knows everything better and just lets the other three do the dirty work, like hand-to-hand combat and computer hacking. So if the script doesn't show any serious effort to use the ideas of the original, the technical side is sloppy as well, with many handheld shots and editing that appears to randomly jump from actor to actress. I give this very generous 3 out of 10 for a few funny moments (intended or not).