Yet another Hollywood
remake of Alexandre Dumas’ classic tale, The Three Musketeers? Yawn. But wait!
Was that an airship in the trailer?
On the strength of that one bit of steampunkery, I gave the
movie a try. Fortunately, my expectations were set low. The writers and
producers did tweak the characters and plot a bit, but not as much it seemed
while watching. Some updates from the historical fiction, written during
France’s Belle Epoch but set during the 1600’s, may have been made to give
modern audiences easier access to the story. But the broad brush storyline of
young D’Artangan leaving his village to find his fortune in Paris, falling in with the famous trio, and
getting the girl while helping the Crown actually holds true to the main points
Dumas hung his tale upon.
The wild swerve in this re-telling comes from using the
airships as a key visual device. In the opening sequence, we watch the
Musketeers – plus Milady – steal plans for an airship from the ingeniously secured
vault of Leonardo DiVinci’s scrolls. Later we get to see the airships in
action, including a full-out battle in the sky.
