The Musketeer

I remember seeing an interview one time many years ago with director/cinematographer Peter Hyams where he was talking about what got him excited to make The Musketeer.  He said he saw Chinese acrobats (I can’t remember if it was in person or on TV) flying all around doing stunning athletic work and it clicked for him that this is how you do a Musketeers movie.  This was just what the doctor ordered to spruce up the old tale that the audience has seen many times before.

But to me The Musketeer feels more like an attempt to Matrix up the well known characters and story in order to tap into that movie’s enormous success.  You know, to bring it into the next millennium.  Let’s have D’Artagnon (Justin Chambers (Grey’s Anatomy)) pull martial arts type moves and toss the stiff European swordplay aside for a looser Chinese influenced style with lots of flips and shit.  It sounds intriguing and possibly absurdly entertaining to go with such a different action motif than what the time period calls for (the 1620’s).  I wouldn’t discount the idea right off the bat because hey, you never know.  But unfortunately this is one dumb fuckin’ movie.

One of the worst things is that nobody looks like they’re enjoying themselves.  They all give the vibe that it’s a chore to get through every scene.   The only one that seems to be having any fun is Tim Roth (Hoodlum, Selma) who plays the villain.  But he, along with all the other characters, have absolutely no depth and are simplified to the point of being caricatures.  Take Roth’s character for example, he dresses in all black, has a black eye patch and when asked to scale back on the murdering he responds “what if I absolutely must kill someone?”  There’s nothing there but an unmotivated maniac.  Even Chambers as the lead who does seem to be trying still comes off way too stiff (is it just me or does he have a little Brian Thompson (Cobra, Lionheart) thing going on).

And as for the action, well, it’s definitely not as cool as it potentially sounds on paper.  There are really two big sequences that bookend the movie that go all out with the martial arts-ish direction.  The first is a brawl in a tavern and is probably my favorite part of the picture.  D’Artagnon takes on four guys at once and zips around with the agility of a cat and the speed of Jackie Chan.  He does all sorts of crazy shit during the fight like fencing while balancing on a wine barrel and flipping up into the rafters.  The finale involves going head to head with the villain in a gigantic room filled with really long huge ladders.  They sword fight while jumping from ladder to ladder and teetering on them like a Cirque du Soleil routine.  This sequence isn’t quite as fun as the tavern one but it’s certainly more ambitious and outrageous.

Aside from the two scenes I mentioned above the rest of the action is pretty standard fare (ok there is that one part where D’Artagnon fights with a makeshift rope dart) and that’s very disappointing.  To make matters worse the editing during almost every sequence is kinda messy and confusing.  The filmmakers had this idea (whether genuine or just as a way to cash in on the Matrix craze) to incorporate a very traditional story with a very different style but only went part way with it.  They tried to compromise by leaving half the action in a more American style and it doesn’t work.  They should’ve gone all out.  

The stunt choreographer is Xin Xin Xiong and he was Jet Li’s stunt double so you know he’s got a ton of knowledge and some excellent training.  And I think he does as good a job as you can with this bizarre order that got called in.  I feel like what we get is only a brief taste of what Xiong could’ve done if he was allowed to run totally free.

Peter Hyams is an underrated director in my opinion but unfortunately this is not one of his better efforts.  SuddenDeath is still his best (written by Gene Quintano who also did The Musketeer) but even his earlier ones like Capricorn One and The Star Chamber are really fuckin’ cool.  I would suggest checking one of those out instead.