Fantasy movies were not "invented" with the "Lord of The Rings" trilogy, but goes way back to the silent era. As far as I see it it has come and gone with the trends in movie making and popped up primarily when artistic movies became just too "artsy", like Star Wars in the 70s and LOTR at the turn of the century. An anomaly may be the 1980´s, when every type of movie seemed to compete with all other types of movies .. all wrapped in a 80´s sort of aura.
One of those particular 80´s movies is Ladyhawke, a fictional "medieval" type fantasy story, with an underlying slightly gynocentric lovestory and an 80´s style soundtrack if there ever was one. I have read that the director was listening to a lot of Alan parsons Project while location hunting in Italy and eventually ended up using music that sounded a lot like that late 70´s early 80´s Parsons. It often sounds out of place and has that annoying flat synthesizer sound, even with added "oomph" from the subwoofer.
A young man, Philippe the mouse (Matthew Broderick,) escapes the city jail, but ends up as a kind of servant for a knightly looking fella, Navarre (Rutger Hauer), who is inseparable from his impressive hawk on his arm and his black horse. He helps Philippe escape the chasing soldiers, in a rather ridiculous slapstick fashion, even for an 80´s movie, and then Philippe feels he is somewhat protected by Navarre, though he constantly thinks of escaping. Not least when he experience that Navarre intends to use him as a tool for getting inside the city he just escaped, to kill the evil bishop.
At one point after sundown, while Navarre supposedly is asleep, Philippe is rescued from a robber attack by a beautiful hooded woman Isabeau (Michelle Pfeiffer) who controls a wolf. Later, during daytime, Navarre and his hawk is shot by soldier arrows and Philippe agrees to bring the hawk to a monk Imperius (Leo McKern) living i solitude up in the mountains. At night he discovers that Isabeau is also present there and injured by an arrow. During an escape from attacking soldiers, the true story of his "companions" is revealed. While falling from a tower she shifts into a hawk. Philippe figures out that the two of them are lovers hit by a spell that turns Isabeau into a hawk during daytime, while turning Navarre into a wolf at night, thus making them unable to "be together".
Imperius reveals the back story. The Bishop, disappointed in finding that Navarre and Isabeau had secretly wowed to be together, was unable to woo Isabeau and then put the curse upon them. It could only be lifted if they both had human form a day without a night and a night without a day.
They enter the city at night while Isabeau is human and Navarre is a wolf, enabling their passage. Philippe, invigorated by the sentimental story of the lovers, has agreed to help and enter the city by tracing his escape route back inside.
Hoping that some miracle can help him, when it becomes daytime Navarre attacks the bad guy captain of the soldiers and after an "impressive" fight on horseback inside the cathedral during a clergy mass held by the bishop, Navarre succeeds.
Through the window a solar eclipse becomes visible and Navarre becomes convinced it can break the curse. He then realizes that his order to Imperius, about killing the Hawk has to be reversed. He tries to fight his way out. In the end the hawk flies in and shifts to Isabeau finally humanizing them both at the same time. The bishop is then finally defeated and the couple has been united.
I cannot help the feeling, that it is a movie that i want very much to like, but a few important things makes it really hard though. There are more that a few scenes that are very well shot and even quite artistic in the good sense. A lot of effort has been put into finding relevant and impressive locations, which is a great plus in my book. The plot is what it is and I am generally fine with most of these types of movie plots in this genre.
Now to the bad parts. Besides a reasonable job by Broderick, the acting is mediocre to say the least. Hauer looks so stiff and unemotional - he is unable to convey true feelings. A bit of the same is the case with Pfeiffer, if not quite as stiff. They even look very much alike with their rather psycho-looking eyes - they could be brother and sister for all I know :-) .. There is no emotional development of the central characters in the love-story, and that is a big failure in a movie that is largely based on a lovestory. There are some glaring inconsistencies in the cinematography. Some scenes are clear and sharp while others are grainy and murky. As I said the great scenes look very impressive but are put aside to focus on the bad acting and generic fantasy story. And then the soundtrack of course. You have to be either a huge Parsons fan or completely absorbed with the eighties to possibly appreciate it. Otherwise it is a bummer. I cannot really recommend this movie for its scenery alone, which is nearly all that I enjoyed about it. Time has not been kind to Ladyhawke.
Rating: 4/10
