De tre musketerer

Plot synopsis:
In Venice, the musketeers Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, with the help of Milady de Winter, steal airship blueprints made by Leonardo da Vinci. However, they are betrayed by Milady, who incapacitates them and sells the blueprints to the Duke of Buckingham.
A year later, d'Artagnan leaves his village in Gascony for Paris in hopes of becoming a musketeer as his father was, only to learn that they were disbanded. At a rural bar, he challenges Captain Rochefort, leader of Cardinal Richelieu's guard, to a duel after being offended by him, but Rochefort merely shoots him while he's distracted. Once in Paris, d'Artagnan separately encounters Athos, Porthos and Aramis and, accidentally offending all three, schedules duels with each. Athos brings Porthos and Aramis to the duel as his seconds and d'Artagnan realizes who they are. Richelieu's guards arrive to arrest them, but, inspired by d'Artagnan, the musketeers fight together and win. All four are summoned before the young King Louis XIII and Richelieu urges him to execute them, but Queen Anne is impressed by their bravery and the king condecorates them instead.
Richelieu instructs Milady, now his accomplice, to plant false love letters among Queen Anne's possessions, steal her diamond necklace, and take it to the Tower of London in order to frame her as having an affair with Buckingham, which would force King Louis to execute her and declare war on England. At this point, the people would demand a more experienced leader: Richelieu himself. In order to secure her own position, Milady demands that Richelieu declare in a written authorization that she is working on behalf of France.
The false letters are found and given to King Louis, who is advised by Richelieu to set up a ball at which Queen Anne would be forced to wear the necklace. If she doesn't, then her affair is real, and there will be war. Queen Anne's lady-in-waiting Constance Bonacieux discovers Richelieu's plan and pleads with the musketeers to stop him. They follow Milady and Buckingham to London, while Constance is captured by Rochefort for helping the musketeers to escape from him.
In London, Milady tells Buckingham the musketeers have arrived to take revenge on him and teaches him all their tendencies in battle. D'Artagnan is captured, but turns out to be a decoy, allowing his associates to steal Buckingham's airship and rescue him. Milady's getaway coachman reveals himself as the musketeers' manservant Planchet and delivers her to his masters, who retrieve the necklace from her. Athos prepares to execute Milady for her treachery, but she leaps off the airship, apparently dying on her own terms.
The musketeers depart back to Paris, only to be intercepted by Rochefort in another airship, as Milady had given Richelieu copies of da Vinci's blueprints. Rochefort offers to exchange Constance for the necklace, but captures d'Artagnan and orders an attack as soon as he retrieves the jewels. His superior airship has the upper hand and severely damages the opposing ship, but the musketeers manage to crash both onto Notre Dame. On the roof, d'Artagnan duels and ultimately kills Rochefort. Constance is sent ahead to quietly return the necklace to Queen Anne.
The musketeers arrive at the ball and, for the sake of King Louis and his people, lie by claiming that Rochefort tried to sabotage an airship that Richelieu built for them, and that they executed him for his treason on Richelieu's permission. To convince the king, Athos presents Milady's authorization, which the former accepts. Richelieu, satisfied, offers the musketeers a place in his army, but they refuse, and Richelieu vows they will come to regret their decision.
Meanwhile, Milady is found alive at the English Channel by Buckingham, who declares his intention to exact revenge. He is then revealed to be advancing towards France with a massive fleet of battleships and airships.

Tags: historical fiction

Review:
Refresh view on the as-world-old story of the 3 musketeers. So far the longest and biggest animation of the best Latvian cartoon makers. Everybody has seen some movie about three musketeers, but, be assured, this, you haven't seen yet! The original story of musketeers is there, but, it's told in a very different way. There's good sense of humor used a lot, maybe even a bit too much, but, it's not getting worse, as you watch it. The music is well used and has a nice touch of Latvian traditional music to it. This animation probably will not be fully understood by kids - but it's great fun for both kids and adults alike. Basically this is the type of animation, that the producers of it have been making for years for Latvia (the name of the series is Avarijas Brigade - and it's as good as Three Musceteers!). It's animation of puppets, all movie is made of them (the same technique as Wallace & Gromit), but it's a bit more adult oriented then it.. Delightful film for young and old. Just about the cutest film I've ever seen. Extremely well done. Saw it in an audience of children and adults at the Mill Valley Film Festival, and everyone enjoyed it immensely. Very European in feeling, totally unlike anything that would be made in the U.S. Would love to see more of this Latvian claymation work; it appears to come out of a long history of puppetry. Found the English dialogue to be perfectly satisfactory. And the jerkiness of the claymation was part of the charm of the film. Great sense of humor in this version--the faces, the sheep, the dogs, etc. There is supposed to be a video on the Internet showing the making of this film, but have been unable to find it. (It was in that search that I came across this site.). Kids movie - and not a good one. Stop motion puppetry is known to most people (in the US at least) from the TV Christmas specials about Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. This film doesn't add much to the field. Stop motion puppetry is poorly suited to action sequences of sword fighting, the dialogue is average and I found some of the voices annoying, and the plot has been stripped down to the bare essentials, which leaves adult viewers wondering about the motivation of all of the characters.Lest you get them confused, stop motion puppetry does not mean the expressive claymation of Wallace and Grommit. The only facial motion these puppets are capable of is moving their mouths up and down.