http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38an1IAG1TA
Wow. Just wow. I’ve stated in the past that I strongly believe that there is a place for the Michael Bays and Zack Snyders of the filmmaking world. Cinema can be all about spectacle, and the visual effects extravaganzas that Bay and Snyder deliver us are pretty damn entertaining for all their mindlessness. Paul W.S. Anderson is a director who’s been working since I was a kid, and he tends to make similarly style-over-substance movies to Bay and Snyder, but he just doesn’t seem to understand how to balance out his movies in a way that makes them more than forgettable. Look at his filmography: Mortal Kombat, Event Horizon, Resident Evil, Alien vs. Predator, Death Race…they’re enjoyable enough films while you watch them, I suppose. Event Horizon is a decent enough sci-fi horror flick. But when it comes down to it, I never walk out of a Paul W.S. Anderson (not to be confusing with P.T. Anderson) movie feeling like I’ve seen something that I’d never seen before. At least Transformers had mind-blowing CGI and 300 had a slick, stylish look. But you just don’t get any of that with an Anderson flick. Take a look at this trailer for his most recent film: an adaptation of The Three Musketeers starring, among others, Ray Stevenson, Christoph Waltz, Matthew Macfadyen, Orlando Bloom and Milla Jovovich. That’s a pretty good cast, all things considered, and it was enough to pique my curiosity. But then the preview arrived and, well, it’s all explosions. In fact, there are more explosions than sword fights, from the look of things. In the end, I’ll probably skip this and just re-watch the Disney adaptation of The Three Musketeers from the 90’s with Kiefer Sutherland, Oliver Platt, Tim Curry and Charlie Sheen before he went nuts.
The Three Musketeers in 3D comes out October 14, 2011.