So, yeah, somehow I hadn’t seen the 80s fantasy film Ladyhawke before. As always, I have no explanation for this. It’s just something that turned out that way. All things being equal, it’s fairly harmless, so it probably wasn’t because my parents said no. Heck, the most offensive thing is the electronic score, and all things being equal, it wasn’t my thing but it wasn’t that bad.
But you know, after something heavy like A Hidden Life, getting a sillier piece of fiction is a nice counterbalance. As long as this isn’t the sort of movie where I more or less needed to see it when it was new and I was still a kid, it probably wouldn’t be too bad.
Set in something like Medieval Italy, a thief named Phillipe “the Mouse” Gaston (Matthew Broderik) escapes an infamous dungeon and tries to escape to the countryside. He’s found by some guards but then defended by the mysterious Etienne of Navarre (Rutger Hauer). He’s a rather imposing fellow dressed in black with his own black warhorse and a hawk by his side. Despite his protests, the Mouse is snatched up to guide Etienne back inside the very place he just snuck out of. Phillipe doesn’t really want to do that, but strange things keep happening. He only sees Etienne by day, and a beautiful woman named Isabeau (Michelle Pfeiffer) is there by night instead while a large wolf prowls nearby. Sure enough, Isabeau is the hawk, Etienne is the wolf, and the pair were cursed by a corrupt bishop who wanted Isabeau for himself. The two change shapes when the sun comes up and goes down, and neither possess more than an animal’s intelligence when in their beastial bodies. Getting into the heavily fortified city and taking care of the bishop could, potentially, break the curse.
OK, that much I more or less knew. This is a movie with a fairly famous premise as it is. Heck, The Venture Brothers did a take on it with a pair of supervillains that were also Lyndon “Bee” Johnson and his wife Lady Bird. But I had never seen the movie and, as 80s fantasy works goes, it’s largely good stuff. Richard Donner, probably know best for directing various more adventure-type stuff be it The Goonies or a whole lot of Lethal Weapon movies, may not have been my first choice for such a film, but he does know how to put together some rollicking action. Hauer has the right kind of gravitas for a movie like this, the kind that gives credibility to something that, let’s face it, can be rather silly, and Pfeiffer, in what was probably her break-out film role, does fit the bill of a beautiful and gracious woman. Given what the script requires to be said about her as a character, she’s probably the closest a real person could come to being that person. The casting of the pair, who of course spend very little time together, works. And while this isn’t a special effects heavy film–most of the transformations happen off-camera and the ones that don’t are accomplished with a series of fades–it also maybe doesn’t need to be.
But then there’s Matthew Broderick. He doesn’t really work here with his own brand of, for lack of a better word, mugging. Phillipe seems very out of place as a character, and given a near running commentary to the camera throughout the movie, a part of me suspected he was being asked to do another Ferris Bueller, except this movie came first. He’s just not very convincing as a Medieval thief. There’s always room for the right kind of boisterous, over-the-top performance, but that right kind was seen in Leo McKern’s Imperius, a monk who helps the party after a stray arrow wounds the hawk. There are moments when Broderick’s antics come in handy, but he just doesn’t seem to be a good fit for the world of the movie as it is.
Still, this was fun. It took itself just seriously enough to mostly work, and Broderick aside, there wasn’t anything here I could say I didn’t actually like. I don’t think this will become an all-time favorite or anything, but it was an enjoyable way to spend some time on a Sunday night.
Grade: B
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