Da'ud Bob's Movie Review
for
  December 2024


So, having last month republished a guest movie review by Anna Sue, with the consequences you have seen, this month we are republishing the review that Anna Sue was supposed to have done last month. Enjoy!



I love my friends.  Really, I do.  They add variety, interest, and new horizons to my life.  They help to pull me out of my comfortable routine, and force me to challenge myself.  But, sometimes, I’d just as soon stay in my nice, comfortable little groove, and not be challenged.  Like Calvin in the old Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, I don’t enjoy activities that “build character”; I’d much rather do what I want.  But I have friends, and so my character gets built whether I will or no.  And, as sometimes happens, the way my character gets built is by one of my friends bringing by a videotape with a movie on it that I haven’t yet seen.  And, as happens sometimes in those sometimes, the movie I haven’t seen is one that I need to review for you, my faithful readers.  Well, to make a long story shorter, my good friend Glenn Bob brought me a tape with just such a one of these, and so it is that this month, Da’ud Bob reviews 2004's Hallmark Channel Original, La Femme Musketeer.

Starring Susie Amy as Valentine d’Artagnan (you can already see where this is going, can’t you?), Michael York as her father, D’Artagnan, Gérard Depardieu as Cardinal Mazarin, Nastassja Kinski as Lady Bolton, Casper Zafer as Gaston, Patrice Cols as Jules, Michael Culkin as Claude, Freddie Sayers as the young King Louis, Marcus J. Pirae as Villeroi, Kristina Krepela as Princess Maria Theresa, John Rhys-Davis as Porthos, Christopher Cazenove as Athos, Allan Corduner as Aramis, and Constantine Gregory as Planchet (though the sign on his tavern spells it with an extra T, “Plantchet”), this is, yes, another “children of the Musketeers save France just like their fathers”, only this time, the old men get to join in and actually participate.

Good points: The boots worn by the Cardinal’s guards.  The Cardinal’s office.  The horses.  The fight choreography wasn’t too bad.

Bad points: You mean, besides the fact that the history is completely wrong, and it doesn’t even follow the actual books about the three and four Musketeers at all?  (In the books, d’Artagnan does not live to retire to a quiet life in the country.  Really.)  Propounding equal rights for women.  (In the 1600s!)  The Cardinal’s guards all have the same black cross tattooed on their necks.  (Like you couldn’t tell who they were by their black and red uniforms!)  Fake lace.  Calling something that was not any kind of lace at all “Spanish lace”.  The fight scenes were filmed at a slower speed than they were projected at, to speed them up and thus make them more “exciting”, I guess.

Zero breasts.  One-half gallon of blood.  30 dead bodies.  Rapier fu.  Knife fu.  Poisoned hat pin fu.  Pistol fu.  Pitchfork fu.  Shovel fu.  Attempted gunpowder fu.  Carts roll.  Cardinal’s guards roll.  Apples roll.  Carriages roll.  Musketeers roll.  Gratuitous disdain for dresses.  Gratuitous knife juggling.  Gratuitous torture.  Gratuitous Dance of the Sun King.  Gratuitous baiting of the Captain of the Cardinal’s Guard.  Academy Award nomination to Roy Dotrice as Musketeer Captain Finot for “Stay away from all women, under the age of fifty.”  I found that I kept making references to Star Wars throughout the movie, from the overall plot, to the Emperor (Cardinal Mazarin, plotting to run the Galaxy, oops, I mean France), Darth Vader (Captain Villeroi, head of the Cardinal’s Guard, wearing black, who was also doing a little plotting of his own against the Cardinal), our heroes rescuing the Princess by, in part, going through what could genteelly be described as a trash pit under the castle, etc., etc.  All that was lacking was Han Solo saying “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” or C3PO saying “We’re doomed!”  A whopping 93 on the Vomit Meter.  1½ Stars.  Da’ud Bob says, “Check it out!”



Upcoming movies and miniseries to watch for!


Snow White
March 21, 2025		 Starring Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen, Rachel Zegler as Snow White, Andrew Burnap, and Ansu Kabia, this Disney production is a live-action "reinterpretation" of the 1937 animated film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This movie has gone from an early 2024 release to an early 2025 release.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight
2025		 A century before the events of Game of Thrones, two unlikely heroes wandered Westeros... a young, naïve but courageous knight, Ser Duncan the Tall, and his diminutive squire, Egg. Set in an age when the Targaryen line still holds the Iron Throne, and the memory of the last dragon has not yet passed from living memory, great destinies, powerful foes, and dangerous exploits all await these improbable and incomparable friends. A(nother) Game of Thrones prequel. Streaming on Max.


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