By Dean Goodman
LOS
ANGELES (Reuters) - ``The Musketeer,'' a martial arts take on the classic
Alexandre Dumas tale, rode to the No. 1 spot at the North American box office,
while Mark Wahlberg's ''Rock Star'' hit a flat note in its first weekend.According to studio estimates issued on Sunday, ``The Musketeer'' (Universal) has pulled in $10.7 million since its Friday bow, easily outperforming the two other wide new releases during a traditionally quiet post-holiday weekend.
The No. 2 slot was filled by ``Two Can Play That Came'' (Screen Gems) an urban romantic comedy, which grossed $8.3 million in its first three days.
``Rock Star'' (Warner Bros.) tuned in with a disappointing $6.2 million, level with incumbent champion ``Jeepers Creepers'' (United Artists), and narrowly ahead of the Nicole Kidman thriller ``The Others'' (Dimension) at No. 5 with $6.1 million. Rankings could change when final estimates are issued on Monday, especially as some rival studios ranked ``Rock Star'' at No. 5.
According to tracking firm Exhibitor Relations, the top 12 films grossed about $62.6 million, down 17 percent from the equivalent three-day portion of the previous Labor Day holiday weekend, but up 39 percent from the year-ago period when the Keanu Reeves thriller ``The Watcher'' was tops.
New releases next weekend include the Reeves urban baseball melodrama ``Hardball'' and the thriller ``Glass House.''
``The Musketeer,'' starring Justin Chambers as D'Artagnan, one of the three fabled swordsmen who save the French monarchy, was marketed as a merger of classic chivalry and cutting-edge chopsocky moves. Critics were unimpressed, even though the cast also included acclaimed actors Tim Roth, Stephen Rea and Catherine Deneuve.
Universal Pictures, a unit of Vivendi Universal, teamed up with Walt Disney Co. -owned Miramax Films to buy the North American and U.K. rights for $7.5 million, and they will split the pool evenly. The film cost about $40 million to make, a Universal spokesman said.
``Two Can Play That Game,'' starring Vivica A. Fox as a vindictive girlfriend, attracted a primarily black audience, said a spokesman for Sony Corp., which released the $6 million film through its Screen Gems unit.
Opening sales for ``Rock Star,'' loosely based on the true story of a salesman who was drafted in to become the new lead singer of metal band Judas Priest, were disappointing, said Warner Bros. distribution president Dan Fellman. However, the film did do well in college towns, and he hoped support from the 18 to 35 age group might give it some extra strength. Warner Bros. is a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc .
``Jeepers Creepers,'' a teen-targeted horror slasher that ruled the box office last weekend, has now made $24.3 million after 10 days. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. paid $2.5 million for North American rights and released it through its United Artists arthouse banner.
``The Others,'' a haunted-house thriller that earned rave notices for Kidman, has pulled in $67.6 million after 31 days.
Elsewhere, sixth-ranked ``Rush Hour 2'' surpassed the $200 million mark to become the highest grossing film in the history of its AOL Time Warner Inc.-owned distributor, New Line Cinema. The Jackie Chan/Chris Tucker comedy earned $5.9 million over the weekend, to take its total to $206.1 million. New Line's previous record was held by 1999's ``Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me'' with $205.8 million.
Among limited releases, director Barbet Schroeder's ``Our Lady of the Assassins,'' which he filmed covertly in Colombia, totaled a strong $55,044 from two theaters each in New York and Los Angeles. The film, released by Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Classics arthouse unit, revolves around a gay man's affairs with young thugs from the Medellin barrio.
Musketeer movie seem to be made every 2 or 3 years with the last one being that
one where Leonardo Dicrapio was locked in an iron mask. This one needed a hook
to bring in the fans of what Western audiences think is modern cinematic
battles. Xin Xin Xiong was brought in to choreograph the fight sequences and
make them look completely unrealistic, but enthralling. That was the main
mistake this movie made. People like Chinese people flopping around on wires,
but when Anglo Saxons do it and their characters do not have any established
superpowers, it looks as unrealistic as a musical where a 100 people who just
met break out in song in perfect synchroniazation and dance steps. Modern
audiences are not ready to make that leap of faith anymore. Sword fighting is
fascinating on its own, and does not really need much more than the well placed
parry to get a crowd excited. Looking at the fight scenes in the bar and on the
ladders I also noticed I was not seeing the faces of the actors in the action.
It was a stunt man show. Justin Chambers as D'Artagnan and Tim Roth as Febre
were fighting on ladders, but you know that all the fancy flips are done by
stunt people while the actors sit on the sidelines and smoke their cigarrettes.
Stuntman should be used when falling off high places or wrecking cars, but fight
scenes need to show the main actors most of the time and not just in close ups
to bring a certain believability to the moment. Matrix's fight scenes were a
bastardization of the Hong Kong style where they had a lot of slow motion
effects to simulate speed which is sort of cheating. But at least the actors
were doing most of their own stunts and they were established to have special
powers to allow them to float like they did. For this movie to work as a Hong
Kong style flick, it should not have been linked to the Musketeer story. This
movie opened at number one, but it did not open well financially because it just
looked silly. Also, no one cares about Xin Xin Xiong. Go rent Once Upon a Time
in China if you want to see him work in a better environment.
women. Men just want to find a girl that will have sex with them on a regular
basis and cook. Anything else is just filler. Women want a man they can trust
not to cheat on them when they are not having sex or cooking. Vivica A. Fox (get
it) stars as Shante Smith who finds out her boyfriend Keith (Morris Chestnut) is
cheating on her with another woman. Shante implements a 10 day plan to teach her
man a lesson in relationships. However, Keith may not be the smartest guy, he is
not an idiot. He teams up with his friend Tony (Anthony Anderson) to
counterattack Shante's battle of the sexes. Fox looks good, and from the
previews seems to enjoy making men uncomfortable, but it is not fun for guys to
see women act upity when it comes to dealing with men. The women sort of come
off harsh, and guys don't want to sit through it especially on a date because it
just riles the girls up and that is never fun. Movies like to tell us that men
are dogs, and it is basically true. Men will compromise a lot to get with a girl
they like, but many feel that with so many fish in the bowl, they need to
explore other options along the way. This is not a good thing to practice in the
age of sexually transmitted diseases. Monogamy is a better thing to practice.
Guys want to be men, and women want men to be more like women. That is not going
to happen.
millions of people enjoy for years on end, but then there is the dark side. That
dark side which is quite interesting most of the time is unexplored in Marky
Mark Wahlberg's latest effort to forget he sung the song "Good
Vibrations." Rock Star is about the band Steel Dragon needing a new lead
singer when their current one, Bobby (Jason Flemyng), become too much of a
hassle to deal with. Wahlberg is the lead singer of a Steel Dragon tribute band
and through dumb luck ends up replacing Flemyng as the lead singer. This is
loosely based on the story of how Ripper Owens from Akron, OH replaced Rob
Halford as the lead singer of Judas Priest. Wahlberg character of Chris Cole is
an energetic fun loving cuss who is a little too old to still be living with his
parents who are obviously ex 60s flower children types who unlike most movie
parents and real life parents seem to fully support all things involving their
son and his quest to be a rock and roll star. When Chris gets the call to try
out for the band he wins the gig, but ends up losing 
other
things in the process. It is all fun and the music created for the film mimics
that late 70s early 80s style of hair metal that Priest was putting out, but
what the film is missing and what pretty much causes its downfall is any true
dramatic tension. The same thing that caused "Almost Famous" to fail
hurts this movie as well. Where is the drug abuse, the car crashes, the fist
fights, the cursing, or much of what real rock stars talk about when they look
back on how they lived their lives during the peak of their success. Rock Star's
only conflict of note is will Cole be able to resist the groupies and stay loyal
to his girlfriend Emily played by the annoying as ever Jennifer Aniston. The
movie is too nice. That is fine and makes for a tolerable film, but when it is
this laid back it should have been made into a television movie and not a
theatrical film. Every scene is as predictable as the last and since it is told
in flashback form, you sort of know where it is headed. There are no surprises
especially if you know some of the details of how Judas Priest lost Halford and
got Owens. The sex in the film is all done off camera after a post orgy, but its
decadence is not really embraced. Aniston's character seemed to bore the
writers, so a little more than half way through she just leaves for an extended
time. Her character becomes nearly pointless and cliched with how she is there
to support Wahlberg until he gets too obsessed and
drunk with fame. Behind the scenes of being a rock star tend to just deal with
the actual concert performances and a couple of scenes of the lead guitarist
rejecting Cole's attempts at writing his own songs. Riveting stuff here ... not.
The movie is fine and is funner than last year's Almost Famous in my opinion
even though it is less important than that film. If you like this style of
music, which I do, then you should get a kick out of actors pretending to be
these people. I liked Chris Cole's parents and his dopey rent a cop older
brother who gets no respect. Wahlberg is convincing in the role and I have no
problems with his performance. Rock Star is okay, but it is not a must see movie
in any way. If you do see this film, sit through the end credits because the
best part of the film occurs there when Wahlberg's past comes back to haunt him.
That alone is enough for me to give Rock Star positive final rating. Final
Review: 2 stars out of 5; 5 out of 10; C+; thumbs up. It is good enough to
recommend, but don't expect much.