Product: The Musketeer (2001)
Rating: 1.0
A Letter . . .
Dear Makers of the Musketeer:So you tout yourself for having superb action sequences - okay, I'm interested. So you say I should see your movie because it's the same choreographer doing YOUR fights as The Matrix - now I'm intrigued. Then you hire Tim Roth, who is a God among actors. And now I'm hooked. OH YES PLEASE MAY I SEE YOUR MOVIE ?Then you do 4 VERY bad things.1) YOU SPEND NO MONEY ON CINEMATOGRAPHY. Whoever lit this movie should be shaken . . . repeatedly. Somebody thought it would be artistic to film this movie in "Natural Lighting". Too bad that some of the scenes are so damn dark you can't see anything at all. You guys were WAY too interested in making pretty shots and not at all interested in whether or not I can actually SEE them.2) YOUR EDITOR IS PROBABLY THREE. No, that's insulting to toddlers everywhere. Whomever it was that put this film together has issues - he/she must be spastic. It's great that you put in all these wonderful fight scenes - it's great that you used your entire budget to choreograph everything, but at least film the stupid movie so that I can watch the scenes without the camera moving angles 57 times. It was jarring. You see the fight from one angle - something cool happens - then the camera abruptly cuts to a face shot. Action is flying everywhere BUT THEY'RE FILMING THE LOOK ON THE ACTOR'S FACE. WHY????? WHY????? Trust me, the acting wasn't good enough to warrant filming their faces!3) YOU HAVE NO SCRIPT. Storyline-wise, you have a bunch of drunken, disorderly Musketeers who are very sad because the king has disbanded them. Suddenly, just because the hero says so, they all follow him like rats and the Pied Piper! Wheeeeee! Wish life was that easy. And the dialogue . . . don't get me started.4) YOU WASTE TIM ROTH. In reality, you had a pretty good cast. But when you give them no script, don't inspire them, and under-pay them, they give wooden performances. And you wonder why? The only interesting actor among them was Tim Roth, and his lines were so cruddy that it was difficult to appreciate him. That's just heinous - sinful. Bad.This movie was such an abomination, and to think I actually looked forward to it. Please, Please don't make another movie like this EVER again. I don't think I could live through the hype and the hideous product. Really. It brought tears to my eyes. Yuck.