and now the high-flying hong kong style of filmmaking has made its way down to the

classics , and it isn't pretty .

this time out the nod to asia goes by way of france in the excruciating bland and
lukewarm production of the musketeer , a version of dumas's the three musketeers .
by bringing in popular asian actor/stunt coordinator xing xing xiong -- whose only
prior american attempts at stunt choreography have been the laughable van damme
vehicle double team and the dennis rodman cinematic joke simon sez -- our
musketeers are thrown into the air to do their fighting .
the end result is a tepid and dull action/adventure rip-off that stinks of indiana
jones and bad asian kung fu .
the story is so simple my grandmother could have adapted the screenplay .
d'artagnan ( justin chambers ) is the vengeful son of a slain musketeer .
he travels to paris to join the royal musketeers and find the man that killed his
parents .
in paris , he meets the cunning cardinal richelieu ( stephen rea ) , who is trying
to overthrow the king , and richelieu's man-in-black associate febre ( tim roth ) ,
the killer of his folks .
he finds the musketeers in paris disbanded and drunk , so he rounds up aramis
( nick moran ) , athos ( jan gregor kremp ) and porthos ( steven spiers ) to free
the musketeer's wrongfully imprisoned leader treville from the king's prison .
d'artagnan and his new frisky love interest/chambermaid francesca ( mena suvari )
play footsy and coo at each other as the cardinal hunts down the musketeers until
finally the queen ( catherine deneuve ) ends up being captured by the menancing
febre , forcing the musketeers to regroup , with d'artagnan leading the charge ,
and save the day .
director peter hyams ( end of days ) obviously wanted to blend eastern and western
filmmaking styles , but here it's a disaster .
one problem is that , in reality , most eastern films have taken their lead from
western ones .
jet li's high risk is a rip-off of die hard -- not the other way around .
ironically , there is awfully little swordplay or action in the film at all --
maybe ten minutes of swashbuckling spread over five scenes .
most asian action films carry the bulk of their production with 20- to 30-minute
action sequences , because they know the scenes have to carry the picture .
the musketeer instead weighs itself down with a predictable and monotonous
screenplay by gene quintano ( sudden death ) , horrible acting by stephen rea and
tim roth , and the prosaic attempt of justin chambers ( the wedding planner ) to
deliver his mousy self as a leader .
chambers' d'artangnan isn't a musketeer -- he's a mouseketeer !
and hyam's use of candles and torches to light the grime and filth of 17th century
paris are well-noted , but that's the only standout in an overall flat production .