Capone and Lutha take a look at THE MUSKETEER

Hey folks, Harry here with a pair of reviews of THE MUSKETEER that just gut the film. Personally I radically disagree. I saw the film months ago and really dug the heck out of it... but then I'm not a stickler for accents (frankly I didn't notice them and in MUSKETEER film history noone else ever has either) and D'Argtagnan has always been the handsome lead (Michael York, Gene Kelly, Chris O'Donnell), what I liked was the 'Year One' take on the story and the swashbuckling and the score that I just adored. I'm afraid I'll have to radically disagree with Capone and Lutha on this, but hey... you may agree with them more than me... so here ya go...

Hello, all. Capone in Chicago here with a look at a film that begs me to bellow at the top of my lungs: "All for crap, and crap for all!"

I have to confess I’ve never been a big fan of swashbuckler movies. The only reason I like the ‘70s THREE/FOUR MUSKETEERS was for the clever dialogue and fine acting. The 2001 take on Alexandre Dumas’ most filmed book has standard-issue action movie dialogue and some of the worst acting I can remember.

Justin Chambers (last seen in THE WEDDING PLANNER) is the main offender as D'Artagnan (by the way, everybody in this movie—depending on their accent—pronounces this character’s name differently). His performance rivals all others as the most wooden and dull I’ve seen in my life. R2-D2 has more range. Hell, even Freddie Prinze Jr has more....whoa, whoa, whoa, what am I saying?

Since childhood, D'Artagnan has lived to avenge his father’s death. He learns the fighting style of the musketeers, which is apparently a variation of kung fu, and rides to Paris to find what’s left of the king’s guard, the Musketeers. It turns out that the man who killed Little D’s father is Febre (Tim Roth, making a fool of himself in this drivel, and apparently not having changed clothes since PLANET OF THE APES), who in turn in the strong arm of Cardinal Richelieu (Stephen Rea), the kingdom’s religious leader who has his designs on taking over the crown. Rea was one of the few performers I looked forward to seeing in THE MUSKETEER. He’s such a fop as to be almost cartoonish, which is a good thing in the context of this film because everything else is so flat and boring.

Mena Suvari, as Little D’s love interest, delivers her lines with as much conviction as a $5-an-hour mall Santa. It’s not entirely her fault; her character has no business being in a movie like this. Every scene with her in it is a major distraction from a plot that was having a tough enough time holding my interest. Perhaps the biggest shock of the film is the presence of Catherine Deneuve as the Queen of France. Thankfully for her, she doesn’t have much screen time and is spared from doing anything truly ridiculous.

I hate to quibble over something as small as accents, but I was utterly confused about the ones used in THE MUSKETEER. The king and queen of France have French accents, natch. The Musketeers, Roth, and Rea maintain their British accents, while Suvari and Chambers are distinctly American. I guess a case can be made that everybody kept their natural accents rather than run the risk of the American’s embarrassing themselves trying to force accents out of their already limited acting abilities. But, boy, was I lost among the pronunciations.

But you don’t go to see a swashbuckler to see acting; you go to see swashing (or is it buckling?). There’s an opening swordfight between D'Artagnan and a couple other guys in a dining room that’s really great, and the closing fight scene in a room-full of ladders is somewhat fun, but what lies between is pretty average. Sometime Tsui Hark action choreographer Xin Xin Xiong (the recently released and most excellent TIME AND TIDE and DOUBLE TEAM) handles these scenes well, but other are your basic been-there-done-that sequences. When D’Artangnan leaps from a moving carriage into the center of the four horses pulling it, then crawls under the carriage and climbs up the back to fight the villains, I was screaming, “He stole that from Indiana Jones!!!” Director Peter Hyams (2010; OUTLAND; TIMECOP; SUDDEN DEATH) hasn’t exactly been on a role lately with recent films like END OF DAYS and THE RELIC, but he’s always been dependable as the maker of above-average popcorn movies. THE MUSKETEER is waaaaaay below average. I was almost retching up my popcorn. Much like the recent AMERICAN OUTLAWS, THE MUSKETEER is the sterilization of a classic story with cover boy lead actors, who look like they went to a beauty parlor and health club before they picked up their swords. Even the poster for this movie bites.

CAPONE (Click Here To Scream at or Kiss Me)

Or see my collected review at ; just click on Steve@theMovies

and then here's a review from a new guy called Lutha