Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

The Three Musketeers Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman November 15, 2020

The Three Musketeers does not exactly concern itself with historical accuracy and page-by-page faithfulness to Alexandre Dumas' 1844 novel. Instead, Director Stephen Herek's (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, The Mighty Ducks) take is a popcorn film through-and-through, casting good looking actors and whittling the story down to its essentials while amplifying contemporary production values and pacing. It works if one isn't concerned with much beyond a fun time at the movies or using the film as a cheat in literature class.

All for one, blue for three.

Cardinal Richelieu (Tim Curry) has ordered the Musketeers disbanded. The elite swordsmen, sworn to protect the king, reluctantly burn their attire and surrender their weapons. They are needed on the battlefield for a coming war with England, or so the Cardinal claims. But three musketeers remain at large: Aramis (Charlie Sheen), Atos (Kiefer Sutherland), and Porthos (Oliver Platt). The Cardinal’s henchmen, led by Captain Rochefort (Michael Wincott), track them down for arrest, but the Musketeers refuse to turn themselves in, instead turning the tables on the Captain and his men and dismissing them from their presence. They do so with the help of the dashing young D’Artagnan (Chris O’Donnell), a man who has travelled to Paris to join the Musketeers and who joins their ranks in their greatest time of need. With four swords against a determined foe, the Musketeers must muster all of their courage to win the day and restore order in the homeland.

The Three Musketeers puts plot on the backburner in favor of swashbuckling flamboyance. And it's quite adept in accentuating its superficial qualities and leaving behind any pretense of more serious cinematic ventures. The focus on adventure, sword fighting, light romance, and superficial characterization work well enough here with quality period production design and enthusiastic performances from the key cast which plays the parts with overcooked bravado that serves the structure and style quite nicely. Herek and Cinematographer Dean Semler maintain tonal balance, cranking up the excitement without overplaying their hand. If the movie has a legitimate strength, it's that it never pretends to be anything other than a fun escape. Herek and the cast both know their roles and what they want the end product to be and never succumb to the temptation to build beyond the limits where it finds a steady success.

The Three Musketeers Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Three Musketeers rides onto Blu-ray with a routinely wonderful 1080p transfer. Though the picture is a little murky at the very beginning, showing Tim Curry's Cardinal Richelieu in a dank prison, the picture opens beautifully in the scene to follow, revealing a tight, filmic presentation with extremely fine grain, high yield detail, and bold green tones around the frame. It's a stark contrast but the understandably weaker segment is more the exception than the rule. Mostly, the picture excels, offering its best qualities in abundance. Viewers will delight in the costume intricacies, facial complexities, and environmental densities. Clarity abounds and only a handful of softer shots appear. The picture holds to a pleasing, natural filmic texturing which is accentuated by expressive and well-balanced colors, including those aforementioned greens but also including the blue Musketeer tunics and the red the Cardinal's men wear. Black levels can push a little murky in extreme low light, such as in the above referenced opening scene. Skin tones, however, appear spot-on in good lighting. There are a few errant speckles here and there – look at a shot of D'Artagnan around the 11:45 mark – but the source and encode are otherwise in fine shape. The picture does have a somewhat flat feeling about it, notable particularly in the lower light scenes, but Disney's image frequently pushes towards the high end.

The Three Musketeers Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Three Musketeers rides onto Blu-ray with an enthusiastic DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Musical engagement is terrific. It's clear, aggressive, well-spaced along the front, and folds in both healthy surround content and balanced subwoofer output as it's needed in support of the score's low-end elements. Surrounds engage with regularity during battle and chase scenes, too. For instance, there is a fun swirling effects when Porthos knocks out one of the Cardinal's men during battle in chapter five, the effect swinging through the stage with an impressive swooshing effect that seamlessly flows form one speaker to the next. A horse and carriage chase in chapter seven lacks the clarity and depth expected of it, struggling to give real, intricate definition to the scene's most dominant effects, but there's no mistaking the aggressiveness in play, including, again, plenty of balanced surround content. Light atmospherics offer pleasing location authenticity while dialogue presents clearly and effectively from the front-center speaker.

The Three Musketeers Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of The Three Musketeers contains no supplemental content. The main menu screen only offers options to play the film and select scenes. No DVD or digital copies are included with purchase. This release does not ship with a slipcover.

The Three Musketeers Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Three Musketeers: it's fun, it's frivolous, it's a none-too-serious take on classic material, updated for contemporary (of its time) audiences and delivering a prototypical popcorn experience. It's less concerned with tight storytelling and more so the pretty faces and light adventure themes, and it works as a movie one can just check out with for a while. Disney's Blu-ray, currently exclusive to its online movie club, offers excellent video and strong lossless audio. Recommended for a breezy afternoon escape.