La Femme Musketeer

In this three-hour Hallmark presentation, Susie Amy stars as the title character, the daughter of D'Artagnan, played once again by Michael York. It's pretty cute to see him reprising his role from for the fourth time, and while Susie does tease him and call him "old man", he still has a twinkle in his eye and has enough spunk to spice up some romantic scenes with his wife, Susan Brown.

Similar to the original musketeer story where D'Artagnan sets up multiple duels in the afternoon, then ends up banding together with his challengers to fight off the cardinal's guards, Susie sets up a duel with musketeer Casper Zafer. Just as they start to fight, their identities are revealed. All four children of the original musketeers are reunited, ambushed by the cardinal's guards, and band together to defeat them again! While the younger musketeers are busy trying to uncover a plot by the evil cardinal, King Louis, played by Freddie Sayers, juggles his mistress, Clemency Burton-Hill and the political ramifications of marrying his betrothed, Kristina Krepela. Gérard Depardieu doesn't reprise his 1998 role as Porthos, but instead plays the chief bad guy, the cardinal! His cohort is Nastassja Kinski, but if you've seen any musketeer movies, you know that they're not the pair to root for.

Full of fun fight scenes, an interesting swashbuckling story, and a beautiful leading lady to look at for three hours, La Femme Musketeer is very entertaining. It's not too violent, since it's Hallmark, so you can watch it with the whole family and have a nice evening.

DLM warning: If you suffer from vertigo or dizzy spells, like my mom does, this movie might not be your friend. Some of the fight scenes use a handheld camera and it will make you sick. In other words, "Don't Look, Mom!"

This actually isn't that bad. Historically it's complete rubbish, of course (and why is *D'Artagnan* always the one who ends up with a daughter instead of a son? -- see the enjoyable "D'Artagnan's Daughter" of 1994, for example!) and Susie Amy's unfortunate accent grates every time she opens her mouth, but as modern-day swashbucklers go, it was refreshingly free from knowing allusions and would-be updating of the genre. It was just played straight out for the adventure, and all the better for it.

The 'younger generation' - the sons of Athos, Porthos and Aramis - were well-written, acquiring individuality of their own even before we found out who they were supposed to be, and not just clones of their respective fathers. I loved Aramis's offspring as a devout gambler, and Athos' as a cocky womaniser... The Musketeers themselves I thought bore relatively little relation to the characters of the book, with the exception of Michael York's very welcome reprise of his classic role as D'Artagnan. Experience really does show, I'm afraid; he completely acted Susie Amy, for one, off the screen. I'd far rather remember him this way than in the terminally un-funny 'Return of the Musketeers' from 1989 -- a corpse that should have been let lie if ever there was one -- and was extremely appreciative of the opportunity.

I watched the first episode on a whim. I was sufficiently hooked to bother to video-tape the following one when I knew I was going to be out... and bother to watch it immediately I got back, an accolade if ever there was one!

An attractive-looking cast. Good comradeship, avoiding too-obvious romance. Depardieu, playing an Italian-speaking character in a Francophone milieu with a heavy French accent, was out of place, and poor Susie's lower-class London tones were equally inappropriate. Not a classic... but far from the embarrassing mess it could have been.

When I had faced some Hallmark Entertainment feature I've stay thrilled because so many finest offerings of this valuable Company, nonetheless this version of She-Musketeer doesn't drop very well to me, even has been enjoyable didn't pass on sound of ruggedness at all.

The entire storyline actually a new Musketeer generation of the original ones, even the old and powerful Cardinal name was replaced, although the main structure remains the same, a D'Artagnan (Michael York) daughter Valentine (Susie Amy) enters in the scene when France and Spain are in war whatever be the reason, the puppet King Louis (Freddie Sayers) is ruled by the evil Cardinal Mazarin (Gerard Depardieu) that holds the power at your hands and will.

The Musketeer's brotherhood are aware of the jeopardy that hangs over the France, even the Musketeer's Commander still intending intervene over the matter, withdraw Cardinal Mazarin's authority isn't not easy due the strength of church in such time, then Mazarin got a old letter that will proving that King Louis wasn't a really King, this letter was taken by the scheming Lady Bolton (Nastassja Kinski) at the behest of Cardinal Mazarin, also he has the most skilled swordsman of whole France at your service the dreaded Villeroi (Marcos Jean Pirae) nobody is the match for him, not even the Three Musketeer's sons.

In this environment of war and conspiracy the mini-series is developing, the daughter of the famous and unbeaten D'Artagnan will be a key of the hard assignment of bringing a Spanish Princess Maria-Theresa (Kristina Krepela) to marry with King Louis a kind of settlement to stop the war and make King Louis got his real duties from the hands of the crook Cardinal Mazarin that aware of all and intent to break up the accordance between France and Spain in order to keep the France's treasury at your scope, sending half of taxes to Italy, his former country, it also not so easy many unexpected happenings coming soon.

Aside some points and strong ageing leading casting with solid family humor oriented this Hallmark presentation doesn't convince the viewers, shooting at Croatia sounds a little bit cheap production, the Female Musketeer somewhat didn't hit the target, albeit far away to be deemed as bad whatsoever, glad to see it due this DVD is a hard to find in Brazil, now I'd got my original copy!!

Thanks for reading.

Resume:

First watch: 2023 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 6.5.

An entertaining 2-hour movie, fluffed to 3 hours on the US DVD release. It's rather entertaining, for the most part, except that there are great lulls in the action as well as the main plot.

The movie frequently pauses on trivial scenes which focus on unnecessary personal interactions between characters. I suppose if they cut those parts, the original movie might have moved more quickly and yet possibly too quickly for younger child-audiences, and since this is indeed a Hallmark made-for-television mini-series, it's understandable and somehow tolerable.

All of the action/fight-scenes are in frame-flicker-mode, disguising these through safely- and slowly-filmed sequences which are then speeded up, much like old Asian martial-arts films that make everyone laugh, these days. Some of these are well-done, but after a while they become rather irritating, and some still appear to be in fast-speed, despite the attempts to use the frame-flicker-mode.

The old characters from the original Three Musketeers story are brought into the action later, including Michael York reprising his original role from the very popular 1970's Three Musketeers and Four Musketeers movies.

Overall, it's great watching for fans of those 1970's versions, as well as young feminist-heroine fans, and appropriate for younger family members, a rarity these days.

The reason I gave this awful film a 4 instead of a 1 is the wonderful cinematography. This film is beautifully captured in its brilliant colors and wonderful landscapes. Unfortunately, the main character in this is practically unwatchable. The first time you notice that something is wrong is when we get our first closeup of our heroine. For living out in Gascony, France in the late 1600s, why is Valentine wear heavy eye-shadow, cheek blush, and bright lip stick? She does the best she can with the dialog she's given but ohhh, such dialog. Then, in a society that is 200 years away from Women's Suffrage, she expects... DEMANDS... to be treated equally with the men without even proving herself. She even rudely bursts into the Musketeer Commander's office and demands to speak with him. He rightly should have thrown out anyone who tried that except the King. She takes it as an insult that he is not impressed with her. She doesn't try to hide her feminine side at all including having a tailor made, curve hugging Musketeer uniform. This would have worked out better if it was more a "Connecticut Yankee" type where a modern woman is sent back in time but her modern sensibilities are entirely out of place in this film. I'm not sure why a great talent like Michael York agreed to appear in this travesty but I guess a paycheck is a paycheck. If you want to watch a film where a woman takes on a man's world, try Disney's Mulan. The story and acting are much better.