A small army of international stars marches through director Steve Boyum and screenwriter Sandra Weintraub's feminist retooling of the Dumas classic.
France, 1660: Despite her mother's misgivings, Valentine D’Artagnan (Susie Amy) is determined to follow in the boot-steps of her father, musketeer D’Artangnan (Michael York, reprising his role in Richard Lester's back-to-back MUSKETEER movies). Though she gets a sexist reception at the martial-training academy, Valentine impresses Captain Paul Mauriac (Nicholas Irons) sufficiently that she's admitted as a student. Impetuous as she is, Valentine had expected to be granted immediate, full-fledged Musketeer status. Meanwhile, France is enmeshed in a costly war with Spain and while Louis XIV can count on his loyal musketeers, his worldly religious advisor, Cardinal Mazarin (Gerard Depardieu), has quietly built his own elite corps of guardsmen and is quietly plotting a coup. Louis decides to end the hostilities by marrying the Spanish princess Maria Theresa (Kristina Krepela), so Mazarin sends his emissary, Lady Bolton (Nastasjja Kinski), to appropriate a letter that casts doubt on Louis’ royal parentage — he intends to use it to blackmail the king. Mazarin then dispatches Captain Villeroi (Marcus Jean Pirae) to kidnap Princess Maria Theresa and murder her before the wedding. The original musketeers find reinforcements in a new breed of dueling cavaliers and set out to head off Mazarin’s coup-d’etat. Then Cardinal Mazarin’s niece, Mademoiselle Marie (Clemency Burton-Hill), threatens to reveal his conspiracy, so Lady Bolton stabs her and blames the murder on Valentine. But there's no keeping a good musketeer down, and Valentine joins two generations of musketeers to save Maria Theresa and defang Mazarin.
Though repetitive, this made-for-TV historical epic offers costume-adventure addicts plenty of boisterous action, and star Susie Amy stands out from the competent but surprisingly colorless cast as she out-thinks and out-fights her country’s enemies. --Robert Pardi
