On Mila Jovovich and the new Three Musketeers

The new Three Musketeer’s adaptation from Director Paul Anderson touts a star-studded cast, and much of the marketting so far has focused on the 3Dness of the film – luckily it is real 3D, so it might even be worth watching with glasses.

This latest trailer seems to put a lot more focus on the film’s use of popular actions star Mila Jovovich, most famous among genre fans for her starring roles in the Resident Evil films, which are also directed by Paul Anderson.

Here we get to see Jovovich doing a lot of leaping about, dodging things, and swordplaying, all in a corset and an improbably poofy dress. There is also a bit of a scene where Matthew Macfadyen’s character, Athos is talking to Jovovich’s character about becoming a Musketeer.

The original Alexandre Dumas novel is about a young man who joins up with the last three remaining Musketeers in france on an adventure to save the kingdom from conspiracy. There is no woman prancing about with sword and gun, but in Hollywood’s persistent desire to impose modern American sensibilities upon other places and times, I suppose there must be. The Official synopsis of the new adaptation is thus:

“The hot-headed young D’Artagnan along with three former legendary but now down on their luck Musketeers must unite and defeat a beautiful double agent and her villainous employer from seizing the French throne and engulfing Europe in war.”

This sounds right enough, but if Jojovich’s character is the “beautiful Double Agent” mentioned in the synopsis – and really, how could she not be? – then, judging freom her depiction in the trailers, her character is going to be one of those ‘tags along as a good guy for awhile, then turns out to be a bad guy, but is she really a bad guy?’ type characters.

The Three Musketeers – which has dropped the stupid “in 3D” from its official title, thankfully – will arrive in theaters October 21, 2011, and, besides Jovovich and MacFayden, stars Juno Temple, Logan Lerman, Orlando Bloom, Ray Stevenson, Christopher Waltz and Luke Evans.