Rating: 
Summary: Not Worth even Renting
Review: I strongly prefer "The Three Musketeers" with Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, and Chris O'Donnell over this. The ladder room scene what the only this I actually considered worth watching.
Rating: 
Summary: A Well-Intentioned Miscue
Review: Of all the swashbuckling action movies I've seen, this is, unfortunately, the most horrid one I've witnessed. Using martial arts with French swordsmen sounds like a good idea in theory, but to see it played out onscreen was just unforgiveable. You'd think more time would have been spent on the dialogue than the look of the film. Granted, it comes across as an attempt to be a trendy action flick, but it falls flat due to the acting. Justin Chambers had the look to play D'Artagnan, but he left his emotions at the door. Stephen Rhea was horrible as Richelieu. His delivery was flat and emotionless. Thank God for Tim Roth. He was the only bright spot in this film. You just want to hate the guy for who he is and how crazily mean he is. The action sequences are okay at best, but I wasn't amazed by any of it. The ladder fight sequence was interesting, but it ended kind of unheroically. It's a shame, since Roth did so well throughout the rest of the film. Would I buy it again if given the chance, probably not, but I would rent it...once.
Rating: 
Summary: Listen up!
Review: I know my 4 star rating won't bring up the average, but I just have to beat down the primatives a little. No, this wasn't a great movie. But it had more action than any other Musketeer film out there. And if everyone hadn't already slamed it for being "Hong Kong".....I would just say that it was just really well corriagraphed. Sure the younger actors are, let's say, in need of experience, But their performances were sincere if a little naive. And, would everyone please stop comparing remakes to what they think are originals. The Lester films of the Seventies were remakes too, and bear more resemblance to Monty Python than to Dumas. And that's another thing....Dumas was no great writer, just a very popular pulp fiction author of his day.
THE MUSKETEER stands on it's own with a very capable director showing us HIS view. To sum up....good action, witty dialog, a super villian.....a keeper. (Michael York....talk about wooden!)
Rating: 
Summary: Worth The Watch!!
Review: Alot of people ripped this movie, and thats all it is, a movie. There is alot of action and the sword fights were good but very Fast pace. DTS sound was GREAT on my system! I thought the story was good, it held my interest. If you just want to watch a movie and see the GOOD guys win, this is it!
Rating:
Summary: Perfectly dreadful
Review: I think it is admirably quirky that they tried to graft a Hong Kong martial arts movie style onto a 17th Century "Three Musketeers" knockoff, but the final product here is flat out awful, and should never have been released. From the first, the stunts might have been cool, but the editing of the fighting scenes is so bad they are unappreciable, and it's often difficult to figure out what's going on. The whole ladder climax was so blatantly [borrowed] from Great Hero From China that even that couldn't offer a tiny shred of redemption.The thing is just barely watchable. If this was made in 1985, it might make for a funny bad rental, but this thing came out in 2001! Bad direction, miserable acting, horrible editing, and one of the most ineptly written scripts equals one big stinkbomb from start to finish. First of all, the miscasting was at such a level it is hard to believe it wasn't deliberate. Justin Chambers is, frankly, horrible in this role; I can't hypothesize what kind of role in which he might not be horrible. All of the other actors and their characters are ludicrous and instantly forgettable, except for Tim Roth, who had the decency to be a goof off. Chambers' "mentor" reminded me of Andre the Giant's character from the Princess Bride, and we never get to understand how this supposedly incredible swordfighter kid was trained by an overweight guy with bad lungs who rarely moves. The script was just appalling. The "wooing" scenes between Chambers and Suvari were, of course, miserably acted, but the dialogue itself was just embarrassing. You will cringe. The overall plot is ridiculously superficial, yet they still manage to make it a total mess of head-scratchingly bad ideas. That Cardinal Richelieu would have ever hatched plots of such idiocy is inconceivable. He was a schemer to the core, which Dumas always portrayed wonderfully, but ultimately his schemes were designed to enhance the power of the throne and his authority over the king, not undermine it and try and get countries to declare war on France. There's no point listing the rest of its absurdities. Although this was billed as a quasi-martial arts flick, there are really only a few genuine fight scenes, and again, they are badly edited (way too many confusing cuts and obvious speed-motion edits) and it's pretty clear that Chambers did almost none of his own stunts. Hyams should not be directing action flicks. The music poorly corresponded to anything on screen, and since I hate this movie, I might as well hate the music too. It was dreadful. Also, the transfer to VHS was awful; for the first half-hour it looked dullish and yellow, and everything sounded flat. Maybe the DVD is better. Dumas' original "The Three Musketeers" was obviously a wonderful novel, but none of the hilarious interplay between the Musketeers manages to find a way into the script. Aramis, Porthos, and Athos were instead lifeless dolts with no wit, even for the little time they were on screen. The reason they keep making movies from Dumas' novels is that they were fantastic, well-written stories that have endured through the ages. Somehow, the movie versions almost always manage to then abuse them into barely recognizable mushes of hackwork. I know this movie was designed for 12 year olds, but they deserve a lot more credit than to have to endure this pandering, half-hearted miscarriage of a movie.
Rating:
Summary: One of the worst things ever... and not just on DVD
Review: This movie was truly painful to watch. There is not enough space in this review to list all of the things wrong with this movie. But I will try.
First of all... Some actors have British accents, others French, and the lead has an American accent. Yet others have migratory accents that wander between these three. Much of the dialogue has obviously been dubbed in after, and it sounds like it. Also, exposition is painfully squeezed into every stilted, dubbed-over line. The characters are so cartoonish and unbelievable that you will be cheering for D'Artagnan's death by the end. .....
The only reason I bothered to see this movie was for the choreographed fight scenes that looked cool in the commercial. Unfortunately, they are short, poorly filmed, and badly edited. ....
Rating:
Summary: Doing a Honk Kong twist on The Three Musketeers
Review: "The Musketeer" is a dark telling of the Alexander Dumas classic "The Three Musketeers"; not dark in the sense of brooding and foreboding, but dark in the sense that most of the scenes are under lit big time. My guess is that it is easier to hide the wirework under such circumstances, but maybe director Peter Hyams thought he was being artistic. The hook with this film is that the fight choreographer is by Xin-Xin Xiong (who also does stunt work for Tim Roth's character in the climatic fight). This is clearly going to be a make it or break it issue for most viewers, as to whether they are going to buy Hong Kong action sequences in a film with King Louis XIII. I am open to such things in theory but reserve judgment until I see them in practice, and the first big sequence in the film is the best as D'Artagnan (Justin Chambers) takes on an inn full of swordsmen, fighting two or three at a time, while dodging over and dancing on barrels. The initial part is pretty good, but then there is stuff involving the ceiling and the big fight at the finish is more about ladders than it is about swords (although the end is really an old school cliché). So the action sequences are okay, given that the best one comes first. The part where I worried about "The Musketeer" is when the credit rolled and the names Catherine Deneue as the Queen, Mena Suvari as Francesca bon Ansau, Stephen Rea as Cardinal Richelieu, and Tim Roth as Febre the Man in Black, before we get to former Calvin Klein model Justin Chambers as D'Artagnan (good look, no act). Now, Deneue is a big name but this is not her movie. These first five names also make it very clear why the title of this film is not "The Three Musketeers" (there have been 20 of those anyway), because Aramis (Nick Moran), Porthos (Steve Speirs), and Athos (Jan Gregor Kremp) are just supporting characters in this version. This leads us to the biggest problem with this film, which is that screenwriter Gene Quintano goes out of his way to make this story different. Maybe the assumption is that the target audience will not know the original story. Besides making the other Musketeers minor characters, the biggest change is that Febre is now the major villain, breaking off the leash of Cardinal Richelieu, turning the master power politician into a sputtering bystander. But once you throw out the book, why should a little thing like history concern anyone? Ultimately, "The Musketeer" is another one of those films where the trailer is better than the movie (maybe they should let the people who make the trailers make the movies). The DVD extras are nothing special, although I would have thought that if you were going to do a featurette on the fight sequences you should actually get into the fight sequences. Otherwise we are right back to trumpeting the fact that this is "The Three Musketeers" told with Hong Kong action sequences. That should have been the starting point for this film, not the end point.
Rating:
Summary: an F+ for the movie
Review: The director took perfectly good characters from the greatest classic and decided to make his own story with them. Oh yeah, and he used a Chinese chareographer to make them jump around like ninjas. And another thing, Athos, Parthos, and Aramis were portrayed like a bunch of drunken losers instead of noble swordsmen. The director picked completely wrong actors to play the musketeers. This movie is a joke.
Rating:
Summary: It's pretty funny when people have to...
Review: ...say "sure, it's no Rob Roy", or "sure, it's no Mask of Zorro" to defend this film, since the latter two films weren't all that great either. Or better yet, say "Every film can't be an Oscar". In conclusion, "The Musketeer" = worse than most B movies.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting spin on the musketeer theme
Review: If you're one of those people who clings to the traditional view of the three musketeers, you're in for an unpleasant surprise with this one. It's not intended to conform to the original story of the musketeers. Instead, it's a movie that brings the western idea of chivalry and swordplay and fuses it with the eastern style of martial arts fighting. It's like Jackie Chan meets D'Artagnan, only Jackie's not here. Still, the bad reviews are right about one thing--the story is not very interesting, and it's nothing you haven't seen before. What remains, then, are the fight scenes, which are brilliantly choreographed and very well-filmed. I, for one, don't watch martial-arts movies expecting a plot (look at most of Jackie Chan's movies)--I watch them because I want to see action. And with this new Musketeers movie, there is plenty of action. If you're not impressed with action sequences and great fight scenes, don't watch this movie. But, on the other hand, if you're a fan of a good action movie or if you really like martial-arts movies, you may want to check this one out.
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