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Sadly, every character suffers for this. Rutger Hauer is forced to phone it in here. His character is weighed down by the yoke of personal duty and haunted by terrible guilt, but he’s not permitted to infuse Navarre with the same pathos he did Roy Batty, and the movie suffers greatly for it. We are told that the Bishop is evil, but he has little to do the entire movie but make dastardly pronouncements from afar, and hover about his walled garden shaking his fist at people. Much like Darth Vader, he’s more breath than bite. Leo McKern plays Father Imperious, the mad old wizard who shares a past with our two protagonists and their nemesis. He and Broderick have some moments together, but it’s not enough. The movie is too weighed down with needless ballast for the relationship to compensate.

The film’s climax takes our heroes back to where their story started, and relies on a catalyst you can see coming from about the one hour mark. The last act goes on for days, and since the film telegraphs all its punches, you don’t even feel them when they land. Ladyhawke’s occasional moments of drama and passion are inevitably ruined by poor acting, questionable visual effects, horrible synthesizer music or a script ridden with more cheese than the Wisconsin State Fair. And they couldn’t have come up with a better name for a girl than Isabeau? I hear it means “God’s promise”, which is appropriate to the story, but they might as well have named her Agnes. Or Dolores. Gertrude. Ramilda. Britney. Paris. Kim Kardashian.

Like most films, I am sure Ladyhawke was well meant. But like far too many films, it’s little more than a tedious waste of time. “Clumsiness” is really the operative word here. Broderick’s delivery is clumsy. The fight scenes are clumsy. The soundtrack is clumsy. The visual effects are clumsy. Hell, it’s even hard to root for Navarre and Isabeau because while Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer are both perfectly adequate actors, they look like brother and sister, and have approximately zero chemistry together. Not to mention, their characters are so dull and humorless that by the last act you almost don’t give a damn whether it all works out or not. How do you like that? A love story where the lovers are the least interesting part of the deal.

This movie has its moments - I counted exactly three of them - but Ladyhawke never had a chance, and is not worthy of your attention or mine. I’m sorry for cheating, Mom.

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