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- guardian.co.uk, Thursday May 15 2003 10.10 BST
It is a Cannes tradition as revered as the starlets on the beach and the red-carpet parade up the steps of the Palais: the completely terrible opening-night film. Last night's curtain-raiser, Fanfan la Tulipe , was an ineffably ropey costume swashbuckler, a turkey of stupendous proportions that laid an egg so big they had to knock down the walls of the cinema to get it out. The film is fondly remembered in France for the 1952 version, directed by Christian-Jaque and starring Gina Lollobrigida. This remake has Vincent Perez as Fanfan, the devil-may-care adventurer in 18th-century France. Fanfan is much given to that type of screen swordfighting where you aim meaningless blows at your opponents' weapons, then laugh lustily with your head flung back and your fists on your hips.
He is first seen enjoying a roll in the hay with a comely young farmer's daughter, whose querulous, pitchfork-toting dad, on discovering them, gets the shotgun out for some compulsory nuptials. But our adorable hero avoids them and half a dozen other sobbing would-be fiancees by joining the army of Louis XV. In their chaotic ranks, the recruiting-sergeant's daughter Adeline - poutingly interpreted by Penelope Cruz - prophesies that Fanfan will marry the daughter of a king, and so he becomes obsessed with his destiny.
As an example of a certain type of euro-naff, this lumbering and self-satisfied movie can hardly be improved upon. It resembles Dick Lester's Three and Four Musketeers movies of the 1970s - all period action-romances with great faith in the limitless comic potential of swordfights in rustic locations, complete with chickens sent scuttling by the guys with the tricorn hats. Here we are spared the all-female catfights, but we do have onlookers airily placing bets on spontaneous brawls. There are knockabout insults at the expense of the Princess's fat and horny Polish maid, and, when the king is informed about a traitor called the "man in black", he exchanges looks with his black manservant - a supposedly comic double-take.
Didier Bourdon does his best with the role of Louis XV, and Hélène de Fougerolles brings some style to Madame de Pompadour. But Cruz deserves a special Cannes Razzie for a performance of purest teak. It's another in Cannes' long-running series of opening-night europudding clunkers, like Roland Joffé's Vatel or Nikita Mikhalkov's Barber of Siberia. In comparison with this, everything else to come is going to look like a masterpiece.
