It's a medieval fantasy with a great story. A curse is placed upon noble knight Navarre and his lady love, Isabeau. Navarre is a wolf at night and Isabeau is a hawk in the day. They essentially never see one another. It's always just out of reach for these star crossed lovers. Navarre enlist the help of the thief, Gaston played by Mathew Broderick.
Sounds great right? But the sound track stinks. This movie is 1985 and the music sounds 1985. What I mean by that, is that it sounds like the same type you would hear in any Molly Ringwald movie from the 80s. I mean this is a medieval fantasy. Totally unsuitable music. It ruins the mood. Very distracting. Could have used some Joe LoDuca or the late great James Horner.
Then we have the cinematography. Nothing special. In fact it looks like the director phoned it in. Super-bright sunny scenes. No shadowing, or filters to set the tone. Nothing. Finally the accents. Broderick, sounds English at first, but then drops completely into American. Michelle Pfeiffer didn't even bother, it was American all the way. Rutger Hauer, I'm not sure what the hell he was doing. He's from the Netherlands, but was doing some American thing that wasn't quite working. It's medieval France. These accents are distracting and sounded stupid.
Broderick's character bordered on funny to downright annoying. It was the babbling. Very awful. Michell Pfeiffer was beautiful and serene, but really nothing special. Rutger was the most handsome I'd ever seen and he was dashing and likable.
The story was there, but it seems everything else failed. I'd like to see it remade someday. Even an animated version might be great. If they had just fixed these things, it could really have been something. Not a recommended fantasy movie.
Sounds great right? But the sound track stinks. This movie is 1985 and the music sounds 1985. What I mean by that, is that it sounds like the same type you would hear in any Molly Ringwald movie from the 80s. I mean this is a medieval fantasy. Totally unsuitable music. It ruins the mood. Very distracting. Could have used some Joe LoDuca or the late great James Horner.
Then we have the cinematography. Nothing special. In fact it looks like the director phoned it in. Super-bright sunny scenes. No shadowing, or filters to set the tone. Nothing. Finally the accents. Broderick, sounds English at first, but then drops completely into American. Michelle Pfeiffer didn't even bother, it was American all the way. Rutger Hauer, I'm not sure what the hell he was doing. He's from the Netherlands, but was doing some American thing that wasn't quite working. It's medieval France. These accents are distracting and sounded stupid.
Broderick's character bordered on funny to downright annoying. It was the babbling. Very awful. Michell Pfeiffer was beautiful and serene, but really nothing special. Rutger was the most handsome I'd ever seen and he was dashing and likable.
The story was there, but it seems everything else failed. I'd like to see it remade someday. Even an animated version might be great. If they had just fixed these things, it could really have been something. Not a recommended fantasy movie.