Justin Chamber

(In French, On Cable TV, August 2022) Every era gets the Three Musketeers film adaptation that they deserve, and so the early 2000s were about personal heroics and wire-fu action sequences. Directed by Peter Hyams (still a solid action director at the time, albeit definitely losing his touch), this version of Dumas’ d’Artagnan cycle differs from others in three main ways: it focuses on D’Artagnan to the comical downplaying of the other musketeers, creates an action villain out of Richelieu’s shadow and integrates some 1990s Hong Kong action movie clichés into the inevitable action sequences. (Alas, this is only fully realized in the wild ending action scene set in a ladder-laden warehouse—the rest of The Musketeer is more sedate.)  Digital production techniques are also used to give a more convincing sheen to the historical re-creation, although it doesn’t compare to the work later overseen by Paul W. S. Anderson in his steampunk 2011 version of the same source material. You would think that Hyams plus Hong Kong wire-work plus the innate appeal of Dumas’s novel would inevitably lead to something at least mildly enjoyable… but no. The result is both dull and incoherent, briefly coming to life in its final action sequence, which is far too late to five a good overall impression. Justin Chamber is a dud as d’Artagnan, although some of the cast around him (Tim Roth, Stephen Rea, Mena Suvari, Catherine Deneuve) does have some appeal. It seems amazing that a film would do so little with what it had at its disposal, but there you go—it’s neither the most faithful, the most fun, the most spectacular or the most well-rounded version of the Dumas novel. If you see The Musketeer somewhere and must see it, fast-forward to the final action sequence and you will have experienced the best that the film has to offer.