Ladyhawke vs. Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes nearly came down to a fist fight between Mark Wahlberg and Rutger Hauer. Not the current, 63 year old Rutger, but Rutger from the 1980s, who played crazy so well that he scared the crap out of C. Thomas Howell when filming The Hitcher.
Ladyhawke is basically a romance with some fantasy and adventure elements thrown in. There’s an evil bishop, who lusts after a Isabeau (Michelle Pfieffer) and curses her and her lover, Navarre (Rutger Hauer), preventing them from being together. There’s young Rutger Hauer with a sword and a chip on his shoulder and Matthew Broderick playing Medeival Europe’s answer to Ferris Bueller.
I can’t write about Ladyhawke without addressing the soundtrack by The Alan Parsons Project, which was a little weird then and seems even more out of place today, but it was a daring choice. The natural thing would have been to go with flutey forest music or something inspired by Carmina Burana. I’m down with British progressive rock from the 1980s.
I normally hate romantic anything, but I get so gushy over Ladyhawke.
Charleton Heston’s Planet of the Ape and endless sequels (Beneath the Planet of the Apes, A Little to the Left of the Planet of the Apes) are so firmly planted in viewers’ minds that a remake was doomed to fail. Though, technically, Burton’s Planet of the Apes isn’t really a remake; it’s another, more loyal, interpretation of Pierre Boulle’s novel.
In the novel, the planet of the apes wasn’t a future Earth, it was another planet. And like the movie, the main character lands on Earth at the end only to find it being similarly run by apes.
Like a lot of other movies that fall flat, Planet of the Apes looks really cool. The ruling apes didn’t come off as people in ape costumes, they moved like apes. I could have gone the entire movie without seeing a human on screen because the apes were so interesting.
Planet of the Apes is another movie that should have been and deserved to be better than it was. I need more than cool sets and prosthetics. Ladyhawke wins this match, but I don’t see it surviving the next round.
Here’s how it works for the first PRGAAMWA Tournament: John and I each had thirty seconds to pull eight genre movies from our DVD shelf for a total of sixteen movies. Then we did random seeding with our match-ups: with eyes closed, we each grabbed a DVD from the pile. Whichever two we pulled are matched up in the first round of the tournament.
The scores so far. . .
Game #1: Batman Begins struggled past Mulholland Drive
Game #2: Serenity fed Clash of the Titans to the Kraken
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Lisa Fary's earliest influences are Princess Leia, Rainbow Bright, Astronaut Barbie, and her 6th grade teacher, Ms. Palmer. She's angry that it's 2011 and she still doesn't have a hovercraft, but will accept a jetpack as consolation. That jetpack had better be pink with a rhinestone monogram. 
Not seen Ladyhawke BUT as it contains The Rugger Hugger it wins by default. As mentioned above that fella is dynamite whilst bedecked in a trench coat whilst wielding a shotgun is a joy. There is no one else I’d rather have feed me fingers in my ‘freedom’ fries.
The monkey film made me weep blood and other fould body ichors at the sheer knobshankery it contained therein. The only good thing about it is Tim Roths crazed chimp. EVEN THEN the rest of it was so bobbins that I wanted him shot in the gut, tossed in the back of the car and driven to a warehouse by Harvey Kietel while he screaming “LARRY LARRY I CAN’T BELIEVE THE BITCH SHOT ME LARRY!” Then there would follow a good hour of bloody male bonding so pure and paternal that Harve would pop his oldest chums to protect his young apprentice. ONLY to have his illusions shattered when young Mr Orange whimpers “I’m a chimp Larry… I’m a chimp!!”…
Hang on I had a point I was making… erm… OH YEAH. Mark Mark – what a dick.
I did quite fancy Helena B Carters monkey minx though.
Ladyhawke!!!
Okay, it could have used a better soundtrack, but it’s still one of my favorite movies.
I’ve always thought that the soundtrack itself wasn’t particularly horrible on its own. It was obviously intended for a futuristic space drama involving lots of shiny blue spandex, strobe lights and Ray-Bans, but got lost along the way.
You forgot the horse,…. Not only was Rutger Hauer hawt, but so was his horse,….
Millions of girls now own, or want to own, a Friesian because of that movie,….
I would pick a Friesian over a talking ape any day, hands down!