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UCFC Movie Reviews The Musketeer Year: 2001 Director: Peter Hyams Fight Choreographer: Xin Xin Xiong Master of sword: Pascal Lopez (Thanks Nathan!) Starring: Tim Roth, Catherine Deneuve, Mena Suvari, Stephen Rea, Justin Chambers Review by V. Bjerreskov (02 02 08) I rarely walk out of a movie theatre wishing I hadn't wasted my time and money. That's because I enjoy the experience of the theatre, and can usually find some redeeming quality in whichever film I go see. This was not the case after seeing The Musketeer. While I didn't expect much from the movie to begin with, even in that I was sorely disappointed. I shudder to admit that I have not read Dumas' book. I have a copy, and it's on my list, but I just haven't come around to it yet. Nevertheless, I know enough of the basic storyline to realise that this movie is a complete bastardization of the book. All focus is turned from the three Musketeers (Athos, Porthos, and Aramis), to D'Artagnan. Why? To show off his fancy fighting moves, I suppose. I have to assume the director, fight choreographer, and indeed the entire cast and crew behind this movie, didn't want to bother teaching nifty moves to all the characters, and decided to single out D'Artagnan (and by direct correlation, Febre) as their showcase. I suppose I wouldn't have had as much of a problem with it if the lines weren't stilted, the characters one-dimensional and static, if we'd actually seen more of the three Musketeers, and if they weren't constantly being portrayed as stupid. But they were. It didn't help matters that most of the actors were very poor ones. Justin Chambers has one tone and one expression, be it in a love scene or a battle to the death: smug and emotionally infantile. I don't really care that he can jump around like a rabbit and keep his balance on rolling barrels and flying ladders (though of course he's on strings); I would like to see some acting in between. Everyone else seemed to take their cues from Chambers, and I detected very little real acting, or even any emotion at all about making the film, from them. The possible exception would be Tim Roth, but he must have taken a sarcastic standpoint, because his Febre so far over-the-top he was completely ludicrous. As for the swordplay, I hesitate to even review it. The point of the movie was not to make a Three Musketeers movie with somewhat believable swordplay, but to transplant Hong Kong action sequences into pre-Revolutionary France. As such, the action sequences were visually intriguing, but hardly deserve the title of "fencing." I have no idea why the film employed a sword master, since he obviously had very little to do besides polish the weapons. The action sequences were very Eastern, but tended to carry on a little too long. There are only so many ladders and people flying about that an audience can take seriously, and by the end of the movie, I had more than reached my quota for two such films. This movie had so much potential, but failed dismally. Whoever was in charge should have waited for a better script, recast the lead actors and fired the director, shortened the fight sequences (there were more than enough to showcase Xiong's choreography), and realised that fun action does not a good movie make. What, do they think that moviegoers today don't care about story and acting or something? Nathan's Two Bits (02 03 04): Aside from the theft of character names, this film had nothing whatsoever to do with the book. This movie was so bad, even the opening credits sucked! Back to Movie Reviews Home  |  About Us   |  About Fencing   |  Links  |  Photo Gallery Image Bank  |  Reviews   |  Fencing Fun  |  Contact Us