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!"

I don't know why but I actually liked this show. It was entertaining, funny, sexy and overall fun to watch. John-Ryphus was great in it, I haven't seen enough of him and it was a refreshing thing (and appropriate) to see him in this. Usually shows coming from this network are a bit on the lower end-scale, but this one was better. I gave it a 7 out of 10 which as i mentioned for this network is good. I usually do not rate their work this high. This is an old story told a thousand times by a thousand different filmmakers and for some reason I actually enjoyed this one. Anytime La Femme is used in a title, I have found it to be something worth watching for one reason or another.

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.

the costumes and sets were lavish, the actors were top-notch, but MAN, someone needs to tell that director to get his hands off the reins!

the entire thing was so carefully scripted and orchestrated it approached farce.

also, there were some serious ouchies: she does a flip off something-or-other in the middle of a sword fight and we clearly see her hat flip down to cover her face. of course, when she lands, the hat is perfectly placed and her hair is immaculate. pretty amazing, considering the thing wasn't pinned down and it was pretty big.

little things like that -- i found myself watching in a kind of morbid fascination as it veered from extremely good scenery and gorgeous costumes to unbelievably stupid plotting. example: there's a scene in which she makes a huge fuss over having to wear a dress. she spends the movie running, leaping, and generally doing the Errol Flynn in a musketeer's uniform. so what does she wear to accept her reward from a grateful king?

a massive, gigantic, elaborate, silver ball gown, of course.

This is another attempt to capitalize on the Musketeer theme,with some good things in it,but an overall mediocre result at best.

The good things are the bad guy,Villeroi,played by Marcus.j.Pirae,his performance is for a better movie.Also good is Nastassja Kinski as the evil lady Bolton. The European locations,scenic design and costumes are nice.

The bad things are the lead actress Susie Amy who is a very goodlooking girl but terribly wrong for this part.She just doesn't have the necessary "tomboy" personality to be convincing as D'Artagnan's would-be-musketeer daughter. Other major fault is that the swordfighting is shot very close and you cant really see what is going on,which is annoying. Michael York just makes fun of his earlier role and doesn't try to be anything like an aged D'Artagnan. Depardieu doesn't do much and basically just adds his name here.

Overall,its worth a look especially for fans of the genre but nothing more.