Whilst I can’t stand the films of Paul W.S. Anderson at least he normally has the decency of sticking to a franchise (Resident Evil) I generally have little interest in. However, every now and and again he turns his hand to something I may be interested in seeing. First he continued to destroy the reputation of the Alien movies and now he is tackling classic literature. People can criticise Uwe Boll all they like but at least he doesn’t get much money to make his monstrosities whereas Anderson receives tens of millions of dollars to waste.

Unsurprisingly, Anderson is very liberal with the source material yet all these changes add nothing to the story but noise and irritation. It’s camp and hammy but not in an entertaining way, instead you’ve got Orlando Bloom being predictably rubbish, Logan Lerman as the worst D’Artagnan in film history and Christoph Waltz slumming it as the Cardinal. Considering the film is named after the Musketeers it is surprising to see how little they really feature. Instead, Anderson is more interested in showing off his wife in increasingly elaborate outfits rather than building Athos, Porthos and Aramis as compelling characters. Seeing how larger than life most of the other actors play their characters the Musketeers are strangely dull and lifeless.

It makes the Brat Pack adaptation look like a classic.