THE MUSKETEER

Starring: Justin Chambers, Stephen Rea, Tim Roth and Mena Suvari
Director: Peter Hyams
Running Time: 104 mins
Certificate: PG

Available to buy on DVD 10th March

Fourteen years after witnessing the death of his parents at the hand of Cardinal Richelieu's (Rea) sinister henchman Febre (Roth), D'Artagnan (Chambers) travels to Paris to follow in his father's footsteps and join the Musketeers. There he hopes to live up to the King's Royal guards motto "One for all and all for one"

Director Peter Hyams (Timecop, End of Days and The Relic) attempts to bring a new twist to the classic Alexandre Dumas tale and fails miserably. Imagine the pitch… "Let's mix Hong Kong style action with a classic action novel. I know what about the Three Musketeers" and the reply from the big man with the cigar "How amazing and original it should sell tickets by the bucket load!" It might of, if it wasn't done so badly.

The success of The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has made extreme fight choreography and wirework the new action vogue. Hiring an Asian stunt master to oversee the big action sequences seems to be the norm and when it is done well it works extremely well but here it is just an excuse to get this movie made. The problem is that with the exception of one fight at the beginning of the movie, the rest of the fight scenes are so obviously filmed using wires that they look stupid. The final 'ladder' battle between Roth and Chambers is a joke and you can tell they are on wires even though a computer has removed them. The fight is more funny than dramatic and it is over far to quickly.

As the story is taken from a classic novel and one that has been filmed many times before, you'd expect the dialogue in this movie to be at the very least good but most of the time it is totally cringe worthy. Now we know that Mena Suvari and Justin Chambers can act as we have seen them before, but the script they had to work with is so appalling you just want to be sick every time they share a scene together. Roth takes a leave out of the Jeremy Irons book of pantomime villains but is the only actor worth watching in this disaster.

Sometimes when a movie is so awful it is worth viewing just to see how bad it is, but this is not one of them. Alexandre Dumas must be turning in his grave. No, he must be on a spin cycle.

'Casting Justin Chambers' featurette, 'The Stunts' featurette, Trailer, Comments from the cast and film makers, Production notes, Interactive menu and Scene access