Sunday, February 25, 2024

D'Artagnan's Back and, This Time, She's a Girl

D'Artagnan's daughter lands herself in a heap of trouble in 2004's La Femme Musketeer. A meandering, easy-going Hallmark film with surprisingly good production values and a high quality cast that includes Michael York, Gerard Depardieu, Natassja Kinski, and John Rhys-Davies, it's kind of relaxing to watch. The concept is strikingly similar to the 1952 film At Sword's Point starring Maureen O'Hara as the daughter of Athos.

Susie Amy plays the daughter of D'Artangan here. She shows a nice willingness to perform some of the acrobatics of her stunts but as an actress she doesn't light up the screen. Depardieu gives a subtle performance as Cardinal Mazarin, out of place in a production that very much feels like Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (Robert Halmi Jr. was a producer).

It felt like the series established the other Musketeer offsprings multiple times, showing them in gambling and thieving hijinks, until I realised just hanging out in the French countryside (actually filmed in Croatia) was the whole point, not the plot about the Spanish Princess being kidnapped. Amy's character, despite being placed as the main character, is mostly really a supporting role as she just sort of hangs around, maternally smiling at her comrades' hijinks. I don't think the Musketeers ever use muskets in this, by the way, or even carry them.

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