Ladyhawke

Rating:
Summary: CAN'T BELIEVE I STILL LOVE IT. MORE THAN EVER !
Review: I bought this DVD from Amazon. Com, haven't expect much, Consider its age. Thank God they preserved a truly Wide- Screen Version, 2.35 : 1, which may fully presented the moory yet beautiful scenery of middle Italy. ( Lots of DVD announced they're Wide- Screen format, actually they're not. )

I always eager to learn some more from my fave films. Unfortunately the " extras " are unplayable on my DVD player, only the movie itself. ( the problem could be mine ? ) I enjoy the Medieval Knight- Heroine Legend. Melancholic love divided by jealousy and dark spell. Somehow they connect through the help from a mischievous young thief and a remorse priest. The story might be drag, slow and predicable, very few special effect has done in this film. It doesn't matter. As many other viewers ever mentioned, the awful music just about ruined all the great effort that cast and production crew try to provide, so stupid and unbearable. Even some TV score composers can do better job in this case. Celtic Ballads could be perfect match, even enhance this film to a masterpiece, worth memorable.

I also believe that's my first time seen Michelle Pfeiffer on big screen, back to 85, quite impressive. I wish she may share more spotlight with main characters. ( She's actually a supporting role, doesn't has much to do here. ) Though I'm not really an avid fan, quite fond of her. She has a pretty face then. A real fine actress polished by time. She has proves her diverse acting ability in 90s, much more decent and graceful nowadays.

Can we expect to see more timeless love fairy tale on screen after year 2000 ? I'm still longing for.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Fantasy Film
Review: In medieval times, a young thief named The Mouse (Matthew Broderick) escapes from the dungeons from Aquila, led by a menacing Bishop (John Wood). He is saved by a mysterious knight named Navarre (Rutger Hauer), who roams around with a hawk. By night, however, she is a charming beauty (Michelle Pfeiffer) and he is a wolf. The two are in love, but are cursed by the Bishop. So, with the help of a former priest (Leo McKern), The Mouse is determined to help them break the curse and destroy the evil Bishop.

I really love this film. It's one of my top favorite fantasy films of all time. It's also a childhood favorite; they used to show it on the ol' family channel right after Neverending Story. Nostalgia aside, this is a wonderfully made film. You have a traditional medieval story about starcrossed lovers, epic battles, beautiful locales, and humor along the way. I especially liked The Mouse's misconceptions about God and towards the end of the film, he finally has an idea of what's going on. The acting is quite good, especially considering the main three stars were up-and-coming; Broderick just got off of doing WarGames and Ferris Fueller before taking the role. Hard to believe that Rutger Hauer wasn't the original choice for Navarre (it was reported that Kurt Russell was originally selected to play the part) because he makes the role all his own. It's also nice to see him play a hero role, too; for a long time I thought of him as the psychotic replicant from Blade Runner. Of course, Pfeiffer is excellent as she is beautiful, too.

Richard Donner, best known for helming the Lethal Weapon series, directed and co-produced. His wife, Lauren Shuler, produced the film. His directing style here is actually different from most of his films, allowing the beauty of the old landscapes and the fight scenes to be portrayed properly. The screenplay is top-notch, which is no surprise since one of the writers wrote Enemy Mine and the other contributed to the Superman series.

Probably the only quarrel I have with it is the music score by Andrew Powell (one of the members of the Alan Parsons Project). I actually liked the score, especially with its jaunting theme, but one critic described it as "disco-medieval." I can't agree more. It screams the 80s so well that a contemporary score set to a medieval picture seems very inappropriate. Still, a good score despite what people say.

Overall, I highly recommend this fantasy film to anyone that likes the genre. In fact, I recommend it even if you're not because it's such a beautiful film that must be seen. A must-see.

Rating:
Summary: Ken Hutchison as Marquet
Review: Not enough extras on the DVD - I just couldn't stand to give less stars to Ladyhawke, one of my favorite movies ever. Wish they had changed the music when they put it on DVD. It's a very sweet story about love and friendship and bravery and treachery - all with the great medieval settings. Ken Hutchison as Marquet is the best thing about it. But he's always the best thing in anything he does.

Rating:
Summary: Deserves a better DVD release...
Review: This was actually a pretty good movie and Dick Donner has often spoken of as a movie he'a rather proud of, Warners should re-release this movie on DVD with a behind the scenes featurette on how the movie was made and new interviews with the cast and crew.

Rating:
Summary: Ladyhawke: Living up to its genre.
Review: Ladyhawke is one of the few fantasy movies that captures the medieval atmosphere of a time long past our own. A tale is unravelled that tells one of the curse,spawn of sinful lust, an evil man of the cloth has conjured upon two lovers, Navarre and Isabeau. The curse leaves the two forever together, eternally apart as Isabeau (Pfeiffer) is transformed into a hawke by day, and Navarre (Hauer)is doomed to live the half life of a wolf by night.They are helped along in their quest for revenge (or salvation?) by a comic thief (Broderick) and a monk drowning in his own sorrows if not drowning in his drink (McKern). Many have commented on the soundtrack as detracting from the ambience but it lets you know that you won't have to take the film too seriously. Nevertheless, there are some gems within the score here and there. Rutger Hauer is sufficiently moody as the hard headed warrior hell-bent on revenge. Broderick gives the movie its comic balance and brings stability to a simple yet enjoyable plot. Michelle Pfeiffer is stunning, and takes on an animal like quality even when not acursed by her transformation into the Ladyhawke. Unlike so many modern fantasy movies made in the 90's, this is a beautiful movie, and one of the very few fantasy pieces that adds to this genre. END

Rating:
Summary: Ladyhawke DVD - A fine movie on a not so fine DVD
Review: Synopsis:
Ladyhawke follows Phillipe Gaston (Matthew Broderick), a petty thief in Medieval Europe known as "the Mouse." Soon after escape the dungeons of Aquila and the hangman's noose, he accidentally becomes entwined with the quest a pair of star-crossed lovers Attiene Navarre and Lady Isabeau (Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfiefer) to break themselves of a curse put on them by the corrupt and evil bishop of Aquila (John Wood).

About the Movie
Ladyhawke stands as one of my favorite movies. I tend to go towards fantasy as a matter of course, but this movie has strong 'chick-flick' elements in it.

But I don't care. Matthew Broderick is delightful and a little silly as 'the Mouse,' showing in this film, exactly why he's endured as an actor for all these years. Rutger Hauer, an actor I've always liked, did a great job as well. His portrayal of the cursed and grieving Navarre is believable in its intensity. And of course, Michelle Pfiefer, while not a scene stealer, certainly is nice to watch.

The story itself is the classic tale of star-crossed lovers (right down to the enchantment that keeps them apart), but unlike Shakespeare's classic play, the lovers get to have each other in the end. This is a true epic fantasy, with a good many original elements.

The first thing most people mention when they see this movie is that the musical score is out of place. I have to admit that that analysis is right on. The musical scoring for this movie was done by 80's band "The Alan Parsons Project." While generally, I have liked their music, the disco-pop electronica that runs through a good portion of the movie and many of the action scenes is out of place and poorly chosen. In 1985, this was cutting edge stuff, but now nearly 20 years later, it is hopelessly dated and out of place for a pure medieval fantasy film. Fantasy movies should have a fantasy score.

It would be wonderful if a director's cut were released with a revamped musical score. Such a project would turn what is at this point a very fine movie (with hokey music) into a stronger and better lasting film.

But for all the downsides of the musical score, it's the story itself that steals the show. There's something attractive and heartwarming about it and its characters. As a result, they hold your attention easily and through them, the grand finale truly manages to make the viewer grin with satisfaction.

About the DVD:

This DVD release of Ladyhawke is nothing special as far as DVD releases go. It comes on a double sided DVD in both Letterbox and Fullscreen versions in a cardboard snap case. The movie is translated into French and Spanish, and comes with English, French, and Spanish subtitles. There are a few bonus features as well, but all of the textual variety. More on that below.

The video quality of this DVD is not much better than you'd find on a video cassette; something that's somewhat disappointing given the DVD format's high capacity for quality images. The heavy film grain that showed up in some scenes is not something I like to see on DVD. It's a real shame, because the lack of quality really shows on a high resolution screens. Likewise, the sound is about average as well.

This DVD does have a few bonus features that come in the format of a few screens of trivia about the making of the film and various aspects of the cast and production. All are interesting reading but aren't anything more than interesting trivia. The only actual video portion of the bonus features is the orginal theatrical trailer for the movie.

Bottom line here is that this is a mediocre DVD release. The bad film transfer really is noticable on high-res screens, and there really isn't much in terms of extra features and material. I give it 4 stars. A fine movie that worth seeing, on a mediocre and disappointing DVD release.

Rating:
Summary: Not bad, not bad--Horrible soundtrack
Review: This is the story of Phillipe Gaston (Broderick), a pickpocket known around the city of Aquila as "The Mouse". He thinks that anything is better than prison, and likewise escapes, running to the nearby countryside. He befriends Navarre (Hauer), a renegade knight, who mysteriously always carries a hawk on his shoulder. One knight, Phillipe finds Navarre gone, and a lady named Isabeau (Pfeifer) in his place. After some klutzing around, Phillipe finds that the evil Bishop of Aquila made a pact with the devil, cursing Isabeau to only be human at night, and a hawk at day, and cursing Navarre to be wolf at night and human during the day. It turns out that the Bishop was secretly in love with Isabeau, and decided that if he couldn't have her, no one could.
You can guess the rest...

This wasn't a bad flick. I actually really liked it. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who was expecting some extremely high fantasy movie. This is more lower class. But the soundtrack--GOD the soundtrack--was the worst I had ever heard. It was so bad it had you thinking about it the whole movie...yuk. And it was DISCO!! It wasn't even made in the '70s.

But if you like good acting and interesting fantasy, this is for you.

Rating:
Summary: In Need Of A Road Map
Review: Here we have the type of story line that most Fantasy enthusiasts with pastel posters of unicorns on their walls reliably swallow like Ecstacy. Albeit much more Fairy Tale than Fantasy (for those followers who discern the difference), "Ladyhawke" is a film thematically purloined from the hey-day of Dungeons & Dragons, alongside such escapist fare as "Dragonslayer" and "Excalibur" and various other 80's-era movies permutating swords, sorcery, dungeons, and dragons into a costumed mystical hootenanny. Only this time the sorcery takes center stage as the story's main plot device, ranking as the Romantic angle which is supposed to entice viewers to care about two "cursed" characters (Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfieffer) wronged by a jealous, tyrannical priest/bishop (John Wood). But don't worry, kids -- there's still ample swords and dungeon stewed into the mix.

Those elements in place, what could have been an interesting and entertaining fairy-tale-adapted-to-big-screen premise takes so many wrong turns it's hard to know where to begin documenting them all. Not that I won't try: the first place to start is with the bottom-shelf performance of the eternally-youthful and highly overated Matthew Brodderick, who slips in and out of the most dreadful excuse for a British accent this side of Kevin Costner. Considering the characters are supposedly all French, one wonders why Brodderick didn't simply go the route of his American co-stars Hauer and Pfieffer, who eschew any pretense towards linguistic affectations and just settle for native U.S. of A. Perhaps he was attempting cozy up to the British cast members who constitute the majority of the film's antagonists, most noteably his former "Wargames" co-star Wood, here doing his darnedest to add Lead Nasty to his resume. But perhaps all actors involved would be a bit more convincing if they weren't provided with dialogue that's as stiff as a David Duchovny with lockjaw. (As if I haven't already offended the disassociated Fantasy set, now I'm sure to have the X-Geeks on my case.)

However, perhaps the film's gravest error is the use of Alan Parsons as "soundtrack consultant" -- whatever that means. As best I can tell by the music in the film, it apparently means providing a soundtrack as anachronistically out-of-place as the more recent "A Knight's Tale" -- except in this case, it's arguably worse in that, where "Knight's Tale" made no pretentions towards augmenting the story with an appropriately Medieval music style, "Ladyhawke" commits the sin of appearing to nod a head to traditional symphonic soundtracks while undermining it by utilizing heavily-orchestrated schmaltz-rock in Parsons' signature '70's AOR FM radio style. Without the visuals I'd be hard-pressed to tell whether I was hearing a movie soundtrack or tuning in to a Meco revival. Either way, it's cornball that comes close to out-cornballing the worst Mannheim Steamroller; pseudo-rock that aims to be "sophisticated" but is actually more suited to background diversion while picking out wallpaper samples. In any case, it's laughably ill-conceived for a Medieval Romance.

Still, if you can stomach the gaudy soundtrack, the stilted dialogue and Brodderick's feigned attempt at British theatre, there's enough authentic scenery, settings and costuming to keep one absorbed towards the fairy tale plot resolution. The fact that it's Fantasy-by-the-numbers and features every appropriate cliche (ie., The Dastardly Man of the Cloth, the Thief with the Heart of Gold, The Penitent Religious Hermit, etc) won't deter those with a predilection towards anything remotely smacking of their basement role-playing sessions of yore.

Richard Donner has delivered some very fine films over the course of his career, but the amount of slack I'm willing to cut him for this forgettable cheese-fest is directly proportional to the amount of stylistic input he had in forging the final "Ladyhake" project. For his sake, I'm hoping it wasn't too much.

Rating:
Summary: Been a while
Review: It's been a while since I've seen this movie. Good movie with a neat romance, but the cheesy 80s background music just kills it. It would have been more suitable to have a gallant classical score.

Rating:
Summary: One of my VERY FAVORITES!!!
Review: A story about a Curse, a corrupt Priest and a Love that defied darkness. This was the first movie I had ever seen Michelle P. in and her beauty was flawless, as I love Romance novels this movie really appealed to me. Rutger Hauer was every woman's Noble Knight. Matthew Broderich was so funny as was the priest that lived in the run-down castle.

I highly recommend this movie for youngsters as the story is exciting and tells the story that LOVE truimphs over Evil. A Priest in love with a woman he can not have, the captain of the guard is in love with the same woman who loves him as well. The Priest can't have her and finds out that the 2 are in love and damn them to a life forever apart. There is a thief (Matthew B.) who is the only known person to have escaped the dungeons of Aquilar, Navarre (Rutgar H.) happens upon him hears of this is and is greatly interested in getting into the Fortress of Aquilar to destroy the corrupt priest who has damned himself, Navarre and Isabeau (Michelle P.) (sigh) what lovely names.....

The guards of Aquilar have been told to recapture the theif (Matthew) and return/and or kill him to the dungeons. Of course these guards are the same guards that used to answer to Navarre. Wonderfully exciting story and a mystery too!!

Respectfully Reviewed