First look at The Three Musketeers

The first officials photos have been released:

And I find myself both interested in and frankly dubious about this project. Here’s why:

PRO: This movie hails from Summit Entertainment, the studio that gave us the delicious RED and the true-to-its-source-material Twilight Franchise. Summit has a history of treating book fans well.

CON: Paul W.S. Anderson is directing – he who directed Resident Evil and Mortal Kombat. I am less than convinced that he has historical epic chops.

HUGE PRO: Andrew Davies, THE man when it comes to literary adaptations (Bleak House, Bridget Jones’ Diary, the Pride and Prejudice miniseries…) penned the adaptation. If he writes it, we book fans tend to come.

Could be PRO or CON: Logan Lerman is playing D’Artagnan (he of the long locks in the above photo). He was brilliant in 3:10 to Yuma, and absolutely wooden in Percy Jackson: The Lightening Thief (though given how atrocious that movie was, I’m willing to believe it wasn’t his fault). Could go either way…

PRO: An all around solid cast that includes Mads Mikkelsen as Rochefort, Matthew Macfadyen as Athos, Ray Stevenson as Porthos, Luke Evans as Aramis, Christoph Waltz as Cardinal Richelieu, Milla Jovovich as M’lady de Winter, Juno Temple as Queen Anne, and Orlando Bloom as the Duke of Buckingham.

CON: There seems to be an abundance of silly hair. Yes, France, period piece, I understand. But much like Harry Potter 4, the hair is just distracting.

And last but not least…

CON: Michael Wincott isn’t in it. (Michael Wincott, if you’re wondering, is the guy who rocked the sword fights in the 1993 Musketeers; in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves; and in The Count of Monte Cristo.)

He is my lodestone for awesome fencing scenes, and I don’t care how old he is, if you’re doing European style swashbuckling, you GET MICHAEL WINCOTT. Period. Someone give that guy a sword!

SO it’s a tough call on this one: will we love it? Will we hate it? Only time will tell…

The Three Musketeers hits theaters October 14, 2011.