Reel Critics

Peggy Rogers

As he watches his parents being murdered, a young boy vows to seek

revenge once he grows up and becomes a member of Louis XIII’s elite guard

the Musketeer.

Splitting Alexandre Dumas’ classic “Three Musketeers� into the

singular “Musketeer� fails to capture the spirit or camaraderie that made

the original popular. America’s fixation with individualism and lone

heroes in our popular movies possibly lead to the idea of separating and

reducing the famous threesome down to one.

The disjointed and broken story line makes understanding who half the

characters are or what they are doing difficult to follow. Some of the

fights D’Artagnon (Justin Chambers) gets into appear to be simply to show

the skills he has acquired since the characters he does battle with are

never seen again. Bits and pieces of the political intrigue are divulged

in scenes so far apart from each other that it’s hard to remember what

was said earlier. Cardinal Richelieu (Stephen Rea, “The Crying Game�) and

his hired hit man, Febre (Tim Roth), plot to overthrow King Louis XIII by

making the Musketeers look bad. Framing the Musketeers, however, comes so

far and few between segments that each time a new development happens the

audience is left out of the loop. I still don’t understand how the

Musketeers got imprisoned or why or when.

One of the charms of the “Three Musketeers� was the friendship,

closeness and support the men shared with each other. Here they mock,

challenge and belittle each other. Fighting siblings get along with

better grace and poise.

However, since the film by Peter Hyams departs so radically from the

classic looking at “Musketeer� on its own deserves a look.

The director has mixed genres, merging the swashbuckler with martial

arts. At times it goes way overboard. In the climatic battle between

D’Artagnon and Febre they are fighting while leaping from one ladder to

the next high above the ground. Why not simply conduct their sword fight

while break dancing for example? It would make as much sense. Another

time they basically turn a ladder into a seesaw as they balance and fight

each other. All one of them would have to do is jump off their end of the

seesaw and the fight would be over. And readers, in all fairness that’s

what was on this reviewers mind the last 30 minutes of the film.

Guys 14-30 should love “Musketeer,� but it’s not a well made movie,

not a classic like the book its based on or even in the same company as

Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood. Musketeer works better as a video flick not a

movie flick.* PEGGY J. ROGERS, 39, produces commercial videos and

documentaries.