As a former video store employee, I am proud to say of all the films I ever recommended, LADYHAWKE came back with all favorable reviews, and not once did anyone I rented it to take me up on my "money-back" guarantee.
No surprises there. Despite the production's troubled history between two studios (Fox and Warner's) and endless rewrites by an army of scribes, it still finds everyone involved at the top of their game, and early into most of their careers!
Rutger Hauer's bad guys were always more interesting and charismatic than his good ones, but his role as Captain Etienne Navarre was the noteable exception. In the best shape of his career both physically and artistically (with the exception of BLADE RUNNER'S Roy Batty), he painted the perfect portrait of noble hubris, tinged with the ache of unfulfilled love for his fair maiden, and the sorrow of an eternal curse that could never be lifted. Even Errol Flynn would've been envious.
Michelle Pfeiffer has been many things in her career: earthy, sensual, campy, courageous, but she would never achieve the combination of radiant strength and vulnerability that she did as Isabeau D'Anjou. There have been other actresses who have looked better and given deeper, more nuanced performances since hers...but it's a REAL short list.
When I saw the previews, I was pretty sure that the main thing I would like the least about this movie was Matthew Broderick, whose Philippe "The Mouse" Gaston was a character I was pretty sure would grate on my nerves. And for the first part of the film, he definitely does. Credit it to Matthew's likeability and talent that before the film's end, though, you're rooting for him as much as for the two leads.
And let's not forget an extremely impressive supporting cast: John Wood (WAR GAMES and JUMPING JACK FLASH), Leo McKern (the OMEN films and PBS' "Rumpole of the Bailey"), Alfred Molina (PRICK UP YOUR EARS, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and the TV series THE LADIES' MAN) and a wicked turn by Ken Hutchison as Navarre's nemesis.
For the couple, the friends or the family who want action AND romance, too, you can't do better, (and can always do worse.) And as far as the "music" controversy is concerned, I am a longtime fan of Andrew Powell's work back from his early days with Alan Parsons, and later with The Project, and I thought that the juxtaposition of the contemporary music with the medieval setting worked perfectly. This is, after all, a fantasy, not a historical record of true events! Enjoy it for what it is!
