Ladyhawke (1985)
DIRECTOR: Richard Donner
CAST: Matthew Broderick, Rutger Hauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Leo McKern, John Wood, Ken Hutchison, Alfred Molina
REVIEW:
Action director Richard Donner (best-known for Superman and the Lethal Weapon franchise) tried to switch gears with a medieval fantasy adventure, but the result was a box office disappointment, grossing only $18.4 million against a $20 million budget (although it has since become something of a cult classic regarding it as an overlooked gem). Ladyhawke is picturesque, handsomely-filmed, and fitfully entertaining, but overall a rather campy period fantasy flick that offers some fairly facile sword-and-sorcery stuff alongside scenes veering between high adventure and slapsticky action-comedy.
Our entry point into the story is the slippery young thief Philippe “The Mouse” Gaston (Matthew Broderick), but the story is really about the tragic star-crossed lovers who pick him up as an unwilling traveling companion. Etienne Navarre (Rutger Hauer), the captain of the guard of Aquila, and the beautiful Isabeau d’Anjou (Michelle Pfeiffer) were secret lovers, but when the jealous Bishop (John Wood) learned of their romance after Isabeau had spurned his own advances, he didn’t take it well. In fact, he took it so unwell that he made a deal with the Devil and placed a supernatural curse on the two lovers. By day, Navarre is man and Isabeau is a hawk, while by night, Isabeau is woman and Navarre is a black wolf, “always together, eternally apart”, doomed to have no more than a fleeting moment at sunrise and sunset where they can almost touch. Convinced the curse is unbreakable, Navarre has resolved to storm the castle and slay the Bishop, for which task he recruits the assistance of Philippe—-who initially wants nothing to do with any of this—-when the thief becomes the only person to escape Aquila’s dungeons. But the monk Imperius (Leo McKern), who has a past connection to the lovers, believes he has found the way to break the curse: Navarre and Isabeau facing the Bishop together as man and woman on a “night without a day, day without a night”…like the solar eclipse coming in three days. Meanwhile, the Bishop dispatches his henchmen, including the new captain of the guard Marquet (Ken Hutchison) and the wolf hunter Cezar (Alfred Molina), to kill Navarre and capture Isabeau.
Ladyhawke was apparently a passion project for Richard Donner, who had tried to get the film financed for years and had previously come close to making it twice, once in England and once in Czechoslovakia, eventually getting it greenlit by Warner Bros and 20th Century Fox. Vittorio Storaro’s handsome cinematography captures some great shots, filming on picturesque location in Italy (filming locations included the castle of Torrechiara and the ruined fortress of Rocco Classico, not far from the real-life Aquila). Alas, the script, despite taking four people to write it—Edward Khmara (who later sued when the studio tried to deny him credit and baselessly claimed the story was an actual medieval legend), Michael Thomas, Tom Mankiewicz, and David Peoples—-feels a bit rough around the edges. While fitfully entertaining, the story spends too much time meandering around in the woods between kicking into high gear. More problematically, the tone is uneven, wandering between high adventure and slapsticky action-comedy, with the result feeling all rather campy. The action sequences are clumsily-choreographed and not particularly convincing, with the possible exception of the climactic duel in the cathedral (on horseback, no less) between Navarre and Marquet. In fact, one of the movie’s most effective scenes is a quiet, low-key one, a poignant “fleeting moment” at dawn where Navarre and Isabeau can almost touch but not quite. The biggest offender is Andrew Powell’s much-maligned incongruously 1980s pop/rock synth score (back when synth was all the rage), which has found a worthy place on several lists of worst movie scores.
The cast is certainly eclectic, but not entirely successfully so. Matthew Broderick is fun enough for a while, but his bumbling shtick starts to wear a little thin, not to mention Broderick, with his clean-cut modern haircut and New York accent, feels a little out-of-place scurrying around medieval Europe (he attempts a half-assed British accent for about five minutes, then mostly abandons it). Despite being firmly the “comic relief sidekick” here, Broderick was first-billed due to being more famous than Rutger Hauer or Michelle Pfeiffer at the time due to his roles in several 1980s teen comedies (he basically just transplants the likes of Ferris Bueller into a medieval fantasy here). As our knight in shining armor, Hauer gets to make a rare appearance as a hero (he was originally offered the villainous role of Marquet, but got promoted to Navarre when Kurt Russell dropped out), but Hauer is a bit campy at the best of times. Michelle Pfeiffer—-at the time a mostly unknown fresh face—-is beautiful and ethereal, but she doesn’t get a lot to do. Of the two veteran British thespians in the cast, Leo McKern is onhand to provide the Exposition Monologue, along with a dollop of comic relief, while John Wood is suitably sinister as the Bishop, although he doesn’t get a lot of screentime and leaves the action and dirty work to his henchmen Ken Hutchison and Alfred Molina.
It’s understandable why Ladyhawke has a fan following and is regarded in some circles as an underappreciated cult classic. It’s handsomely-filmed, picturesque, entertaining, and unabashedly old-fashioned romantic. It’s just a shame the product couldn’t have undergone a little more polishing (a better—-or at least less distractingly bad—-score and better fight choreography would have helped) and remains instead an uneven and rather campy middling fantasy sword-and-sorcery flick instead of the grand high adventure it wants to be. This Ladyhawke isn’t flightless, but it also never quite soars the way it should.
* * 1/2