Ladyhawke (Starz on Disney+). I discovered that Disney+ now has an extra tab with quite a number of tv series and an eclectic selection of films. I guess this now justifies the subscription for adults once the rather good WandaVision finishes. Scrolling through, I saw Ladyhawke, which I hadn't seen in a long, long time. Great, I thought.
Fellow squaxx will not be unfamiliar with the jarring sensation of looking at a story you enjoyed when young and realising that time has not been kind. I hadn't realised this is a Richard Donner film, which made it all the more surprising to find that the film is a mess. Matthew Broderick is preposterously miscast as a medieval French thief (he channels Ferris Bueller at some points). Better is Rutger Hauer's silent and brooding knight and Michelle Pfeiffer's peripheral and underwritten fair maiden. However, the monstrously oversized elephant in the room is the score. It's a mix between a traditional orchestral effort and some synth music from the Alan Parsons Project. I can see what they were aiming for, and if it was Vangelis then it could have been great. But it's not. It's bad. So bad that it's stunning they put this film out with it. What on earth were they thinking?
After that, you get to the really weird bits, like the fact that the season changes from scene to scene. What's that about? The plot is paper thin but still isn't coherently conveyed. It's just a total mess. Which would be okay if it was entertaining, but it has huge sections where the story doesn't move, which is just boring and odd for Richard Donner, who is a very good action director.
Lovely scenery, though.
