Dictionary.com defines the word "musket" as meaning "a heavy, large-caliber smoothbore gun for infantry soldiers, introduced in the 16th century: the predecessor of the modern rifle." OK, now that we've established that, here's something which I've never understand. A balladeer is someone who sings ballads. An auctioneer oversees auctions. A mountaineer lives in the mountains. A reindeer...oh wait, that doesn't work here. But, a musketeer fights with a sword. Does that make any sense? Of course, a bigger question is why would someone want to make yet another version of Alexandre Dumas' novel The Three Musketeers, and further more, why is this the movie which we got?

The Three Musketeers opens in Venice, where Athos (Matthew Macfadyen), Porthos (Ray Stevenson), and Aramis (Luke Evans) help Milady de Winter (Milla Jovovich) break into DaVinci's vault to steal a set of plans. The Three Musketeers are then captured and bested by the Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom) who takes the plans. The story then leaps ahead one year, as a young man named D'Artagnan (Logan Lerman) heads to Paris to seek his fortune. Upon arriving in the city, he runs into Athos, Porthos, and Aramis separately and challenges all three to a duel. When the quartet meet to fight, their quarrel is broken up by the soldiers loyal to Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz), so the four men decide to fight together. They then retire to the house the Musketeers share. Meanwhile, Richilieu is plotting to overthrow the young and naive King Louis XIII (Freddie Fox), using the fact that France and England are on the brink of war to his advantage. The Three Musketeers and D'Artagnan are asked to go on a mission on behalf of the king, unaware that they are being played as pawns.

The Three Musketeers comes from Director Paul W.S. Anderson, a filmmaker I used to admire. Anderson (who shouldn't be confused with the director of Boogie Nights) first made a splash with the videogame adaptation Mortal Kombat, a movie which was more stylish than it had any right to be. He then made Event Horizon, a an outer-space horror movie which was derivative but still delivered shocks. After the underrated Soldier, Anderson then returned to the world of video games with Resident Evil, but instead of adapting the game, he took off in a totally different direction, making an awful movie. From their, his movies continued to get worse and worse, from Aliens vs. Predator to Death Race to the Resident Evil sequels, Anderson seemed to lose the ability to tell a story.

With The Three Musketeers, Anderson shows that he can still create pretty pictures, but any sense of pacing, drama, or story have gone out the window. Shot in Europe, this movie looks fantastic. Using real castles, rolling fields, and lavish costumes, The Three Musketeers certainly makes a visual splash. I'm not sure how historically accurate anything shown here is, but it's colorful and makes the film look as if the $75 million budget was well-spent.

It's unfortunate that the movie is so boring. Having not read Dumas' novel, I don't know how closely this version sticks to the source material, but it attempts to create a balance between political intrigue and action. The political part doesn't offer anything new, even for those of us who don't know the story that well, and the double-crosses don't come across as surprising. The action scenes make it obvious that slow-motion is all that Anderson knows now, and the fight scenes look just like something out of Resident Evil, with the only difference being the period costumes. The characters are stereotypes with the Three Musketeers rarely moving beyond their individual personality types. The film's "steampunk" angle also makes things confusing -- how can some technology exist when others don't?

I should have known that The Three Musketeers was going to be trouble when I realized that Orlando Bloom and Luke Evans look almost exactly alike. Any movie which would make an odd casting choice like that clearly isn't interested in doing anything special. (We must also deal with the fact that Matthew Macfadyen could easily pass for Clive Owen and I could asking, "Wait, is Clive Owen in this?") The question of whether or not another version of The Three Musketeers is a moot one -- this could have at least been an entertaining movie if the amount of work which went into the film's look would have gone into the script.

The Three Musketeers should have given Logan Lerman's hair top-billing on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Summit Entertainment. The film has been letterboxed at 2.35:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 23 Mbps. The image is very sharp and clear, showing no overt grain and no defects from the source material. The colors look fantastic and the image is never overly dark or bright. (Seriously, the colors leap off of the screen.) This non-3D version still shows a nice amount of depth and the level of detail is impressive. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 4.5 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. The stereo effects are nicely done as the sounds in the left and right channels are easily distinguishable and very detailed. The action scenes provide impressive surround sound effects, and we can pick out individual sounds here. The subwoofer effects compliment this, as they provide "oomph" to the cannon fire.

The Three Musketeers Blu-ray Disc contains a selection of extras. The film can be viewed with "Access: Three Musketeers" mode. This provides pop-up trivia along with picture-in-picture video where the cast and filmmakers talk about the making of the film. One can also choose to watch the movie with AUDIO COMMENTARY from Director Paul W.S. Anderson and Producers Jeremy Bolt and Robert Kulzer. "Paul W.S. Anderson's Musketeers" (2 minutes) has the director explaining what drew him to the project and how he tried to make it unique. "Orlando Bloom Takes on the Duke" (2 minutes) has the actor analyzing his character. (Anderson refers to this as a "manly" role. With that wardrobe?) Anderson talks about visual effects and his affection for the airship sets in "17th Century Air Travel" (2 minutes). "Uncovering France in Germany" (2 minutes) shows us the movie was shot in Bavaria, which doubles for France. The Disc contains twelve DELETED & EXTENDED SCENES which run about 14 minutes. Some of these are rather pointless, but the Blu-ray Disc gets bonus points for labeling the moments which contain new footage.