The Musketeer

Very, very loose adaptation of Dumas's "The Three Musketeers" features fight choreography from Hong Kong stunt master Xin-Xin Xiong. Unfortunately, the direction is murky and the action sequences are too cramped to be effective. In this version of the musketeer-go-round, D'Artagnan (Chambers) is motivated to join the famed battalion to avenge the murder of his parents by the evil Febre (Roth). He is disappointed to find that the musketeers have been decommissioned by the scheming Cardinal Richelieu (Rea), so he forms an alliance with Athos (Gregor), Porthos (Speirs) and Aramis (Moran) to set things aright. Along the way he falls for Francesca (Suvari), a close confidant of the queen (Deneuve). Despite the shortcomings of the fight scenes, the scenic French countryside is filmed beautifully and the actors do their best with the garbled yet overly familiar material.