Christina Lynn

As a fan of the 1980s kids TV show I had high hopes for this film, but they fell rather flat sadly as I found the film lacked all the charm of the original. The 3D style animation, whilst bringing it into the 21st century, I felt lost some of that nostalgic appeal. I was also disappointed in some of the voices that I felt were miscast, most notably Cardinal Richelieu and even Dogtanian to an extent. I also missed the narrator. I think another problem was that in the original series we see Dogtanian's journey over 26 episodes/ 625 minutes and we feel like we have completed that journey with him through all the highs and lows... here all that story has to be condensed into just 83 minutes. I should note that the stories are not identical though, just both loosely based on the book by Alexandre Dumas - in particular, it revolves around the storyline of retrieving the Queen's diamond necklace - so you won't feel like you are repeating things by watching this if you are coming from the original series too. Personally, I also felt the original series had a more cleverly written (dare I say comparatively highbrow) script, which I also missed. In this film, I think in trying to bring it up to date it was a little too daft at times (the fight with Milady, for example), if that's possible. Though, as a quick way of introducing a new generation to the tale of the Three Musketeers, it was fine enough. There is a cute singalong bit at the end for those of us who remember the original theme tune, though strangely it's performed by a soprano choir that also changes the melody slightly in one place, so it is hard to actually singalong! I can see what the filmmakers were going for and there are one or two laughs in the film but, overall, I was disappointed. I didn't hate the film, but I wouldn't watch it again.