The Fourth Musketeer

Alexandre Dumas's "The three musketeers" is a perennial classic with an amazing story, adapted for the screen in different countries and languages. I've never seen a bad version and couldn't imagine a British production not doing it justice. And how wrong I was!

The idiots (it must be a whole bunch of people, not only the director) turned Monsieur de Tréville into Trévillé, i.e., pronounced "trevileh". Then the actors are totally miscast: Milady was given an annoying Spanish accent, fast talking and impossible to believe in a seduction scene. Among the musketeers the worst miscast is Porthos, who was supposed to be extremely strong. Instead the actor impersonating him is smaller than the other two musketeers and with bad teeth. Rochefort is given a lisp (or is this specific to the actor?). D'Artagnan's father is meeting his son after not seeing him for two years in the same position - at the table - as when he was giving him a speech before he left for Paris. There is no single view of a Paris street, all scenes are filmed inside (with the exception of the duel which is placed in a nondescript backyard) in exactly the same setting (meeting with Treville, father-son discussion, etc). Done on the very cheap.

The action reaches up to one tenth of the novel (the duel with the Cardinal's guards) and then stops brusquely, making me for a moment believe the movie was actually part of a series.

So bad ... I cannot believe some investors put their money in this film. The director should be banned at least for ten years ...

PS What I cannot understand is how the movie can have an overall rating of over 4 when there is no individual rating over 3? The real rating, taking into account the reviews, should be slightly above 2.

When the opening credits showed a nice engraving of an 18th Century Gentleman I thought we weren't in for a gem - sadly I was right.

The sets and the set dressing are superb and as good as you are going to get but the positives stop there. The script, directing and acting are all so amateur that you would get better from the local 'AmDram'. The armourer was a complete joke, as was the fight director.

Given how many times the 'based on Alexandre Dumas' novel' has been made how is it still possible to get EVERYTHING so very wrong - even, in this case, the timeline!

If you want a musketeers movie you still can't beat the Richard Lester version. But there are other versions that are quite watchable - this is not.

Really, just don't bother, you'll never get that part of your life back. Watch some paint dry, it would be more entertaining...

Acting is not that great. But some does, it is not painful but could have done much more.

The sound is sometimes done nicely, but also wrongly done.

Pity, they pushed so much information in an unnaturally way that it is pity to see. The script is OK but due to acting it is just lowering the quality of the movie.

The camera work is just B rate and the sound also.

The intro is so much rushed, putting so much information in short time.

It is funny how rapid it goes but also how much potential it has in story.

Like the overall story but the sub elements are pity.

The ending is nice but also predictable and a bit disappointment in the result. The nice thing is how it got round up without being forced.

Not badly done for a low budget movie but nothing exciting. I would expect more from an action movie and from the story, which was also fine but simplistic. Not recommended.

I watched this because the high rating but quickly found it was a stacked deck. They used every trick in the book to make it look bigger, such as using artistic drawings for the cut scenes, but I still think they made the complete movie with just 4 sets. It doesn't matter because the acting matched the sets, small and uninspired. Finally, the script. It was horrible, just horrible. Do not watch this, ever, find an old movie and be happy.