The Musketeer (2001)

Peter Hyams

USA

Of all the dead great writers, they had to pick Dumas, on whom to inflict this indignity. I am afraid the Frenchman is now spinning in his grave like all those barrels they danced on in the film. As a fan of HK cinema, I am always on the lookout for well-executed fighting, especially if it offers something new and unique. I thought that maybe (a big "maybe") enhancing the great story of the Musketeers with some acrobatics may prove to be a winner. I was wrong. It may be possible, but Hyams sure as hell did not pull it off. Not only did he bastardize a perfectly good novel into a cheesy revenge-driven promotional vehicle for that talentless hack Justin Chambers, but he also wasted Xiong Xin Xin's talents as a choreographer. (By the way, the "legendary" Xiong isn't nearly as legendary or good as the trailers would have one believe. More on that a bit later.) What's the use of banking on incredible swordplay and/or acrobatics if you are going to shoot it in dark rooms, in the shadows, or against some incredibly murky background. I think I missed 80% of the action! I hear Hyams does his own lightning. He should fire himself.

First, the story. So Quintano takes the thick novel, looks at the table of contents and says, "Wow! Too big to read." He then pulls out some names, like D'Artagnan, Planchet, and some musketeers, and concocts a slimy gruel stinkier than the witches' brew in Macbeth. All the shouts "All for one and one for all" notwithstanding, there is no camaraderie among the musketeers, who are reduced to caricatures of themselves. There's no sense of plot, there's no dramatic moments, there's nothing that makes a story. Instead, we have a vanilla revenge motif, because, you see, D'Artagnan's (Justin Chambers) parents were murdered by the evil-incarnate Febre (Tim Roth) before his very eyes when he was a small boy. As it invariably happens in real life, the little boy grows up to be a dashing young man of superb fighting skill, who seeks revenge without really knowing who the murderer was. On his way, he meets several musketeers down on their luck, a stupid king, a cowardly cardinal, a bored queen, and a bunch of drunken musketeers, who help him kill Febre, while (conveniently) saving the country from war. Ah yes, in the process, his hatred is redeemed through the love of the presence-challenged Constance (Mena Suvari). If there was anything worse than the trite plot, it was to see these two interact with about as much chemistry as oil and water.

Second, the actors. Yawn. Yawn. Sleep. Snoring. I do not know how or why anyone ever cast Justin Chambers, but this hunk of pure USDA approved 100% white meat is just a delicious steak for teenage girls, that's all. Leonardo DiCaprio can at least act. Chambers cannot. He cannot even fake acting (which is why they probably had to shoot all his scenes with as little light as possible). If you take a log and replace Chambers with it, you'd swear the log emotes more convincingly, and you wouldn't even have to carve eyes or a mouth. When the lead is such an annoying bore, there is little surprise when the rest of the cast shows up, recites the lines as monotonously as possible, and then marches off to payroll to get their checks. Even seasoned, and incredibly talented, actors like Tim Roth and Catherine Deneuve were wasted in roles that would straitjacket even a chimpanzee. I am not including Mena Suvari in the list because I am yet uncertain about whether she can actually act or whether her roles just fit her personality. In this film she sucked, both dressed and naked.

The music. David Arnold is given to scoring extravagant soundtracks for big films, like GODZILLA or INDEPENDENCE DAY. He usually overdoes it, but one can't notice it since the films are overdone anyway, so it fits. Here, on the other hand, it was blatantly obvious from the very beginning. Even as the credits began, we were subjected to the most uplifting, most glorious, most majestic, most triumphant, most upbeat, and most nauseating of all marches that have been composed since the soundtracks for German propaganda reels fifty years ago. I mean, come on, stop with the fanfare already.

The stunts. Unimaginative. Stolen. Inappropriate. There's no way in hell anyone can do the ceiling sequence during the first fight (the one with the aforementioned barrels). Such gravity-defying trickery works in fantasy films because they are fantasy films. Here it just looked stupid. D'Artagnan might as well have pulled out a laser blaster and shot his opponents like so much Imperial troopers. The ladder sequence in the final epic dramatic confrontation between a weekend Thespian and a drudge who works for money, was stolen. Obviously, impenitently, and disgracefully stolen from ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA. If it weren't so much worse that the original it ripped, I bet Tsui Hark would have sued Hyams.

What is there left to say about this failure? Nothing except that the greatest moment of cinematic stupidity has to be the frontal assault on the castle. There is nothing better than see a bunch of extras pretending to be musketeers charge across an open field on a castle, whose artillery can blow all of them to smithereens. Guess what? No such luck. Several horses do tumble (no animals really hurt), including D'Artagnan's --- who, having read the script has very wisely exchanged his trustworthy horse for another until the replacement is whacked, at which point he (having read the script) gets on his own trusty Equus caballus, this time to ride to glory or at least to the first tower, where he can impersonate Spiderman. However, the moment the crafty Planchet fires one volley into the castle, the walls come crashing down and the musketeers storm inside. I guess all these medieval sieges that lasted for months were just an exercise in military immobility.

I stop now because this review is in danger of becoming more entertaining that the movie.

September 17, 2001.