Milking it
Another '70s TV movie gets the big screen treatment. By Leo Mourzenko
Special to The St. Petersburg Times
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For The St. Petersburg Times
Mikhail Boyarsky (c) reprises his role as D'Artagnan in the latest "Musketeers" movie.
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There are films that are cornerstones of modern Russian mainstream culture and, to a degree, mentality. One such film, the made-for-television romantic gem “The Irony of Fate” (1975) is relentlessly watched by half the population every New Year. Last year a big-screen sequel was released and while a usual blockbuster makes about $15-20 million, “The Irony of Fate 2” reaped around $50 million at the box-office. This feat was achieved not because the film possessed outstanding artistic qualities, nor was it the result of a pompous ad campaign. Rather, the film managed to pull in a crowd that hadn’t set foot in a movie theater for years and most likely won’t again for years by using this formula: take an old franchise to arouse nostalgia and throw in a few young celebs to make it desirable for the young. Success is almost guaranteed, regardless of how much the actual film sucks. The people behind “The Return of the Three Musketeers,” in cinemas this week, are after the same effect. And boy they did get the sucky part right. “D’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers” (1978) was a Soviet television colossus that spawned two sequels that sank without trace but a career for the ubiquitous, mustachioed bard Mikhail Boyarsky. Here’s the plot of the new film. All the original musketeers die in one day. Their children — a nun, a cross-dresser, a potential basketball player and a Dima Bilan lookalike — are summoned by Queen Anne (Alissa Friendlikh) to help her retrieve some jewels from the evil Cardinal Mazarini (Anatoly Ravikovich) who has stolen a whole chest of them and taken them to England to hide in a hay barn. The nun does a cartwheel. The ghosts of the original musketeers sit around and make comments. Amid this havoc, an imbecilic-looking Louis XIV (Dmitry Kharatyan) takes a bath, the Queen’s treacherous Chief of Staff plot a conspiracy, and did I mention they break into song every so often? The heroes set off on a journey across a stream chased by a dedicated captain Leon. After some hardly describable events all five of them, plus a bitchy woman in a green dress and a pack of jihad ninja-monks fight for the chest of jewelry in a setting that is supposed to represent a tavern. Then one of the kids dies. Then the original musketeers come to life. Just like that, they come to life. Hopefully this film won’t end anyone’s career during a time of financial collapse, so let’s not put anyone in the spotlight for taking part. But the main question remains: why is everything so poorly executed? The settings are tacky, the acting is poor, the songs are boring, the fights and explosions are past the point of civil criticism and the overall impression is that the film crew worked blindfolded. Where does this unity in bad work come from? All for one and one for all?
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