The latest film adaptation of Alexandre Dumas�s classic �The Three Musketeers� novel is almost certainly the worst adaptation of the story. With bland dialogue and poorly edited action sequences and diabolical villains hatching really diabolical plots that leave you laughing at their ludicrousness. This film�s tag-line �As you�ve never seen it before� is certainly true, but it�s a film you�ll never want to see like that again as the film fails on almost every level. Even Arnold�s orchestral score has taken some beatings but why I can�t figure out. The score is not one of Arnold�s best and lacks the memorable power and scope of Michael Kamen�s 1993 effort but it still stands well for many reasons.
Firstly one of the main reasons Arnold scores are so popular is because David Arnold scores the best action music out of every composer around at this time. Every cue is a massive effort filled with the loudest orchestral bombast you will ever hear at the moment. He employs many different motifs during all his action cues which change pace and style rapidly and so keep the music moving and stop it going stale and the motifs are powered by different parts of the orchestra in different cues. Tomorrow Never Dies is a good example of this with tracks such as "White Knight" and "Underwater Escape" making heavy use of the entire orchestra whilst tracks such as "Bike Shop Fight" use only the brass and more prominently the percussion and timpani.
Whilst Arnold�s cues for The Musketeer are not as diverse as TND, focusing almost solely on orchestral bombast, the action cues for this score are some of Arnold�s loudest and best pure orchestral action cues. �Fight Inn�, �Coach Chase� and �Ladder Fight� stand out from the massive amounts of action music on the CD. The first two exhibit some good action statements of Arnold�s swashbuckling theme for The Musketeer. Many of Arnold�s statements of the main theme are hard to pick up on the initial listen due to the sheer power of the accompanying orchestra at the time but soon emerge from the ruckus as the central theme becomes more familiar to your ears. �Ladder Fight� is a superb collection of orchestral bombast. Its pace and volume is almost unrelenting throughout and takes all of Arnold�s best short motifs from the previous action cues and compiles them into 3 minutes of one of David Arnold�s best action cues.
The quieter moments of The Musketeer make up about a � of the CD release and surprisingly show half of Arnold�s talent for secondary love themes which is usually is usually one of his strengths. He does compose a love theme of sorts that takes centre stage in �D�Artagnan and Francesca� and �Down by The River� but its no where near the impressive nature of his previous scores love themes. The gentle theme is a pleasant interlude none the less and it�s nice to hear the acoustic guitar and harp being given something of importance within the score to play. This love theme never quite gets the performance it deserves. Unlike the love theme in TND does, but it comes close in �Down by The River� with the strings taking up the role of the harp and giving the theme a much louder and sweeping performance.
The main theme also gets only a few moments of glory after the first track but its performances are at least stirring and massive when they come with excellent performances in �All for One� and �Ceremony�. The latter track being the end of the film it seems inevitable that I end up comparing it too Michael Kamen�s finale for his Three Musketeers score. As fair minded as I try to be, Kamen�s finale still stands as the superior. Arnold�s Finale is grand and sweeping with the orchestra making a great performance but the finale lacks the love themes that Kamen�s had and Arnold�s theme gets a much shorter performance and does not show much expansion through the score.
Overall David Arnold�s score for the Musketeer is impressive and in terms of its action music content, far superior to Michael Kamen�s 1993 score. The central theme to The Musketeer is highly enjoyable and gets some great performances along side the action music and occasional character building tracks. The whole CD is an enjoyable buy and can be listened to many times. It may not be an Arnold classic but it is a worthy score all the same.
****
2. I Will Find Him (4:47)
3. Fight Inn (1:51)
4. D'artagnan and Francesca (2:18)
5. Jailhouse Ruck (3:03)
6. Mansion Impossible (2:36)
7. The Riot Begins (4:39)
8. Coach Chase (4:59)
9. Down by the River (2:28)
10. Prepare Duschamp for Hell (1:18)
11. Ride for Paris (1:51)
12. Febre (1:37)
13. All For One... (3:41)
14. The Change (2:36)
15. Scaling the Tower (2:33)
16. Ladder Fight (2:55)
17. Ceremony (4:12)
