Sacrilege!

[Docfeelgood]

[rah]

Considering how many times this story has been done, I doubt this one will be in the bottom 3rd. At least it looks to have a hot babe in it.

[BlackCat]

I saw several hot babes, so yeah, this will probably be one of the better versions

[-Jrabbit]

Plus they do Crouching Tiger aerial maneuvers. Oscar bait!

[Barnabas]

Why not try to represent accurately Richelieu's France? That just looks ridiculous

[Elok]

Because Hollywood's present business model is to churn out as many explosions and other flashy effects as possible, with as little plot as possible, so that they can entertain dullards in as many markets as possible, with the least effort possible. The historical details of seventeenth-century France would only be appreciated by history nerds, and half of them would object for not showing their favored interpretation of history anyway. And little nuances are hard to translate for the international market, which is where most of the money is.

Also, we're talking about an Alexandre Dumas work here--the man was interested in history almost purely for its dramatic possibilities, and didn't care in the slightest about accuracy beyond what was necessary for atmosphere. He's said to have given a thrilling account of the battle of Waterloo to a couple of military men, one of whom had been present at the actual battle and objected to Dumas's artistic license. Dumas cut off his complaint with, "In that case, my dear General, you saw nothing..."

With that said, this looks fairly stupid and mediocre from a purely visual-spectacle point of view--Resident Evil with sabers. There's no point in butchering history if you're not going to increase entertainment value in the process. I seriously doubt they're going to bother with the unique and colorful personalities of the title characters either, which is a shame. Most of the fun of the book came from their ridiculous bravado. Not that Orlando "they're taking the hobbits to Isengard!" Bloom could do anything with a colorful character anyway.

[Egbert]

Dumb yanks wouldn't know.

Fixed that for you

[Elok]

An increasing number of Hollywood ****burgers are being buoyed up to profitability by overseas sales. Now, whether Americans are actually getting jaded by all the 'splosions or if we're just pirating the damned things, I don't know. Really, though, you can only blow so much stuff up with so many quick cuts before it all starts to look the same. Also, what general audience, outside of perhaps France, could be expected to know much of anything about France during the Thirty Years' War?

[Tuberski]

3D is getting really old, and I still haven't watched a 3D movie.

ACK!

[Docfeelgood]

Porn in 3D would be cool.

[rah]

Yeah, 3D is becoming a reason to make sure every movie has even more explosions. (as if there weren't enough already)

[Elok]

I just realized, from skimming early reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, that this stinker was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, the stinker-crafting genius who created the long stinking line of Resident Evil stinkers. So it is, in fact, "Resident Evil with sabers." And it was on top of the German box office for two weeks (it was released early there), so let's let up on the dumb-yank bashing, eh?