plot : a young french boy sees his parents killed before his eyes by tim roth , oops . . . i mean , an evil man . he vows revenge on that man and is taught the ways of the musketeer by some old dude who used to be one himself ? anyway , fourteen years go by and . . . arrgh , well , you know the rest . . . swish-swish-zzzzzzz ! critique : <NEG> this is a pretty bad movie </NEG> . let's see , where should i start ? okay , first of all , <NEG> the story is just plain boring </NEG> . <NEG> it's not original , is entirely predictable and lacks energy </NEG> . okay , what's next ? acting , you say . hmmmm , well , the main actor , justin chambers , is basically <NEG> an uncharismatic version </NEG> of chris o'donnell but with less range ( think about that ! ) , and mena suvari , <NEG> is just plain off </NEG> . not as bad as thora birch was in dungeons & dragons , but <NEG> entirely miscast </NEG> , with <NEG> bad deliveries </NEG> , <NEG> awful sequences and a piss-poor accent </NEG> that comes and goes . now i'm not sure if this was ms . suvari's fault or the director's , but i've definitely seen her at a much higher level than in this film . the only semi-saving grace actor-wise is tim roth as the irrepressible " bad guy " , but once again , it's not something that we haven't seen before . . . a thousand times . . . by the same guy ! ! tim , please . . . for the love of god , beg your agent to ask the marketplace for some modern day " american roles " for you as a " nice guy " in a romantic comedy or something . stretch , dude . . . stretch ! ! we all know that you can do much better than this gunk . alright , <NEG> what else was bad in this film ? </NEG> oh yeah , the score ! <NEG> yikes , how's about taking it down a few notches there , fellas ? </NEG> this thing <NEG> blares in your ear </NEG> whenever it feels the need to accentuate a certain scene , but actually <NEG> does little more than annoy </NEG> . i think it's important for the man behind the music to recognize that this film isn't a " real epic " by any stretch of the imagination . it's a fluffy rehashed cake-walk created by some " shrewd " studio heads who decided to take advantage of the whole " kung-fu " phenomenon in films , and test it out on an old classic . dudes . . . <NEG> you failed all around ! </NEG> ( keep reading ) <NEG> the editing is also pretty shoddy in this movie , the dialogue banal and stilted and the plot problems </NEG> . . . plentiful ! ( why does the guy on top of the horse carriage just stand there when his opponent takes forever scampering his way back to the top ? why don't they just cut the mouseketeer's rope at the top of the tower , instead of jumping down on their own chords and fighting him while hanging ? why doesn't anybody look a day older , when the sequence says " 14 years later " ? ( at least . . . change your shirt , man ! ) keep in mind that i have never strayed away from championing certain movies that are created simply for the sake of a " fun time " , but this flick just didn't cut it for me . <NEG> it was boring for stretches </NEG> , <NEG> the acting was atrocious at times </NEG> ( the " romantic " scene between suvari and chambers next to the lake reminded me of plays in high school which made you cringe ) , there was little reason to care for anyone and since when were the musketeers fat ? i will give the movie this much , and that is that its main reason for being ( its " raison-d'etre " , as the french would say ) , its fight sequences , do come through despite the lack of their numbers in the film . i was hoping that the movie would be packed with cool stuntwork as promoted in its trailer , but what you see there , are essentially the snippets from the two major ( and cool ) swashbuckling sequences from the film . the first comes right at the beginning of the movie , while the other essentially finishes the film off , hanging from the tower and juggling off ladders . the ladder sequence itself is a definite keeper but <NEG> unfortunately the rest of the movie is just regurgitated crap </NEG> . and can anyone please tell me how catherine deneuve got her name placed at the top of this film's credits ? hullo ? the film is called the musketeer and stars a dude name justin chambers . deneuve is barely in this movie ! ugh , just <NEG> another small thing that annoyed me about this trash </NEG> . now say it together , gang : " all for one , and one for all . . . <NEG> we vow to stay away from it all ! ! </NEG> " thank me later . where's joblo coming from ? a knight's tale ( 7/10 ) - american outlaws ( 5/10 ) - crouching tiger , hidden dragon ( 7/10 ) - the matrix ( 8/10 ) - the replacement killers ( 6/10 ) - romeo must die ( 3/10 ) - shanghai noon ( 6/10 )
