The Musketeer movie review & film summary (2001)

The history is not the point, and neither is the story. Both exist only to supply excuses for a series of action sequences, which steal the show to such an extent that if you like martial arts scenes you'll admire this movie, and if you don't, you won't.

Like Hong Kong fight movies, "The Musketeer" makes great use of handy props, folding them into the action scenes. Nowhere is this more dramatic (or ludicrous, depending on your point of view) than in a final duel between D'Artagnan and Febre, which takes place in a warehouse stacked to the ceiling with shelves of big wine barrels. Of course to reach the barrels, you need ladders--LOTS of ladders, with the two fighters leaping from one to another, walking them across the floor, swinging through space clinging to them, and finally, incredibly, balancing one on a center beam and using it as a teeter-totter for their final showdown. This is harder than it looks.

Oh, and I forgot to mention what led up to that. D'Artagnan has freed all the imprisoned musketeers, who form an army to attack the castle where the Queen (Catherine Deneuve) and the Comely Dresser (Mena Suvari, from "American Beauty" and "American Pie") are being held prisoner by the vile Febre. After the Queen drops a marble bust at his feet to attract his attention (good job she didn't hit him on the head), D'Artagnan fires a rope to the top of the tower and climbs up, hand over hand, to rescue them--but then defenders lower their own ropes, and soon four or five fighters are swaying in big arcs back and forth high above the ground, holding on with one hand while sword-fighting, which is harder than it looks.

An earlier chase sequence involves an attempt by Febre to capture the coach containing the Queen and the Comely D., where D'Artagnan single-handedly holds off the entire force, at one point leaping from the saddle of his galloping horse to the saddle of the horse in front (harder than it looks). And there is an early scene where D'Artagnan is able to support himself between two ceiling beams with pressure from his legs and one arm, while the free arm wields a sword. So much harder than it looks that it borders, I would hazard, on the impossible.