New 'Musketeers' movie made me want to read original novel, learn French

I watched a pretty cool adventure movie the other day, the 2011 remake of “The Three Musketeers.” It made me want to do two things – learn to speak French and to read the original novel.

Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, this PG-13 movie was released in the United States on October 21, 2011. The movie starred Milla Jovovich, Orlando Bloom, Logan Lerman, Matthew Macfadyen, Ray Stevenson, Luke Evans, Christoph Waltz, Mads Mikkelsen and Carsten Norgaard.

For those of you unfamiliar with “The Three Musketeers,” the story is about a young swordsman who teams up with a trio of musketeers. A musketeer was an infantry soldier who carried a musket. They sometimes fought on horseback and were a forerunner of the modern day rifleman. The three musketeers in “The Three Musketeers” are somewhat famous for their past exploits, but they’ve hit on hard times. They find themselves in the middle of a plot to overthrow the French thrown, which could lead to a war across Europe.

“The Three Musketeers” has been adapted to film numerous times, and the 2011 version was based on a screenplay by Andrew Davies and Alex Litvak. As many of you will know, the movie’s based on the original novel by Alexandre Dumas, which was first released in 1844.

I have to admit that I’ve never read the original novel, but it’s one of those books that I’ve always wanted to read. Watching the movie definitely made me want to read the original novel even more than before. Hopefully, I’ll be able to scratch it off my list sometime soon. If memory serves me correctly, I did read the Illustrated Classics version of the novel when I was in the fourth or fifth grade, but I don’t really count that as having read the original.

Watching the movie also made me want to learn to speak French. For someone like me, who has never even taken an hour of French class, the movie comes across as clunky because of all the unpronounceable French names and words. I suspect that reading the original novel, or a translation of the original, which was written in French, will be more of the same, so it would help to have at least a basic understanding of French.

For those of you who enjoyed the movie, you’ll be pleased to hear that a sequel is being planned for a 2013 release. If it’s as successful as the first, someone will stand to make some money. The 2011 version was shot on a budget of $75 million and posted box office revenues of over $132 million. For more information about the movie, visit its official Web site at www.threemusketeers-movie.com.

In the end, I enjoyed this movie and would recommend it to anyone who likes a good adventure movie. How many of you have had the chance to watch the 2011 version of “The Three Musketeers”? What did you think about it? Did you like it or dislike it? Why? Let us know in the comments section below.