Visitors Review

mikemdp (2012-05-24 17:19)

Silly, comic book action, if not altogether satisfying

This film by low-budget direct-to-DVD house The Asylum is a mixed bagof silly, comic book action, uneven visual effects and even more unevenacting. The end result is ultimately a fun, if not altogethersatisfying, time waster.It's not a straight mockbuster of any "Three Musketeers" movie inAsylum's usual "Transmorphers" kind of way. Except for the title andsome character names from the Dumas novel, the movie better resembles a"Charlie's Angels" film, as its plot centers around a team of actionheroes attempting to stop a conspiracy to incite World War III.The team code-named "Musketeers" consists of, predictably, spies whoseown code names are Athos, Porthos and Aramis. They're joined later byan exotic-looking female spy named D'Artagnan who claims to be a directdescendant of the real one. Their enemy: A guy code-named "TheCardinal" (natch) who for reasons unclear wants to start a global warby killing the president.The actors in the Musketeer roles are not too bad and actually appearto be having some fun, which is rare for The Asylum. Arguably the twosorest points in most Asylum productions is that their preposterous,low-budget movies are presented dead seriously, and that their has-beenactors like Greg Evigan seem mortified to be appearing in them.Not so here, where martial artist XIN is so charismatic as Athos you'llhope to see him in a better kung fu movie, lovely Michele Boyd asAramis is reminiscent of Meg Ryan circa "Innerspace," Keith Allanchannels Jeff Goldblum as brainy Porthos who spouts '80s pop culturereferences like "The light is green, the trap is clean," and HeatherHemmens (of the CW's "Hellcats") actually makes you believe a CostaRican hottie could be the direct descendant of a 17th Century Frenchguard.But again, as with most Asylum movies, other cast members are so badyou'll wonder who on the production team they must be related to/havepaid off/had sexual relations with to land their roles. Alan Rachins isso flat-out awful as the Cardinal he comes off as someone's old collegeacting teacher given the part as a favor. He pulls down every scenehe's in so badly the movie actually appears to freeze-frame every timehe comes on screen. Where's Barry Bostwick when you need him? Digitaleffects by Tiny Juggernaut are typically bargain basement, but not somuch that they ruin the show. This is, after all, comic book melodrama,so it's OK by me if the jet planes and rockets look a little cartoony.It's mindless fun that's worth a look on Netflix or maybe picked upused for a couple of bucks. Paying any more for it would be a biggercrime than World War III.

gavinpwebb (2012-05-24 06:58)

Struggling to find a positive note

I have never been so motivated to write a negative film review before.This movie has, as far as I can see, no redeeming features whatsoever.The plot is mediocre and unoriginal. The script is clichéd, unrealisticand uninspiring. It seems to be a low budget movie, but has a storywith action sequences that need far better special effects, or lessambition. The acting seems terrible, but with that script and the lowproduction values, anyone would have looked bad and I can't fault theactors for anything other than bad judgment for accepting the job.One thing that stood out above all else for me was the poor quality ofsome of the action sequences. The (mercifully) short sword fightbetween two of the leading ladies was probably the worst fight I haveever seen on screen. For a director who has made a career as a stuntmanand a fight choreographer, this is really puzzling. What happened? Inone of the final scenes two supposedly expert fencers have a fightwhere they hack at each other with foils as if they're holdingmachetes. For a film that takes it's name from such a classic story ofsword fighting excellence, this failure is an insult, and unforgivable.I was warned before watching this that it was bad, so I had exceedinglylow expectations. Even so, they were not met.

Jason VanMason (2012-05-22 05:52)

A comic book screenplay

Imagine taking the dialog from the balloons in a comic book and simplyusing it as a screenplay. Would it work? See this movie for an answer.The story of the 3 musketeers has been shoehorned into apaint-by-numbers spy/secret agent/commando story by assigning the namesand some plot points of the original to the rather un-originalcharacters and story of this deadly opus. I admit I didn't make itthrough the whole thing so I'll tell you what I saw before giving up indisgust. A crack team of "musketeers" has penetrated some majormilitary installation in (I guess) China and is trashing their warlikecomputer which has been cleverly designed to resemble some high voltageswitchgear. The location has been cleverly disguised as a factory oroil refinery or something with a lot of pipes. In the process ourheroes kill the half dozen useless guards, blow up an airliner, ahelicopter and a few other things. The computer whiz hacks ananti-aircraft gun with his tablet computer, poking the poor thingsavagely with his index finger. A dozen jabs or so and he has loggedonto Chinese wi-fi, cracked the firewall of the internet enabled gun,aimed it, fired it and blown up the enemy fighters, all with lesskeystrokes (finger pokes?) than it took YOU to get the movie to play!We never find out exactly why they caused all this havoc. Somehow theyget back to safety where they regroup and meet up with the girl"musketeer" who is meditating in a brief two-piece swim suit, perhapshoping to remember where she left the rest of her costume. The singlesentence, comic book balloon style speech continues throughout thismayhem, branding all involved as 2-D cardboard totally disposable andboring characters. Even the sexy girl is uninteresting and dull.At first I thought this would be a spoof of this type of story andlooked forward to some entertaining gags. But no, this thing isapparently meant to be "for real" and we must suffer through the anticsof two brainless lugs and one bimbo as they karate-chop their waythrough life.This clunker has the appearance of a costly production, what with many'splodin' things, flyovers of a big city, cgi space satellites andsuch, but it's still small enough to require the crew to post bogusfavorable reviews, hoping to bolster the pathetic rating and maybe cona few credulous viewers into buying or renting this wretched dog! It'sa stinker of the bottom tier! Avoid!

guestar57 (2012-05-21 13:44)

Better Than The Milla & Orlando Effort !

Starring: Alan Rachins, David Chokachi and Kane Hodder.Directed by: Cole McKay Pretty amazing effort to entertain with afamiliar name in action-adventure films.The action stuff is truly breathtaking and moves really fast to plotpoints that make sense and add to excitement of effort.The character names you are used to are here and the evil Cardinal isrepresented by LA LAW 's Alan Rachins.The evilness continues with David Chokachi from BAYWATCH fame and heshows many skills that can still be added to his acting efforts.The cameos reach a pinnacle with F13 JASON,Kane Hodder gives a fleetingcharacter some horrible glee in his tasks.This should be a big hit in rentals and sales, It has everything forthe fan and even occasional viewer of Redbox or Netflix fodder.