This is precisely the sort of film I would like to see remade: one with a decent idea at its core, but marred so badly by overall execution that its legs are chopped out from under it.
What's right: the cinematography is terrific (see the widescreen version), and the lead performances are, on the whole, good. Matthew Broderick is charming much of the time in a role which requires charm -- often a recipe for disaster. Here, by and large, it works. Pfieffer and Hauer are servicable. Some of the minor performers are grating, however.
What's wrong: oh, Lord, where to start? The music, since it provides the first truly teeth-grinding moment. The inventive opening credits are rolling along, nice and evocative, and the music is dim and unobtrusive. Suddenly, this horrid contemporary studio pop kicks in, and my first thought was, "This is going to be a long movie." Then I saw the Alan Parsons credit and I groaned. I used to like Parsons' better stuff, but his worst is pretty unlistenable. Chalk up the score to Ladyhawke among his worst. He creates a theme for the movie and hammers it again and again -- for the first third of the film, with very little variation. And it's so far forward in the mix, I had to wonder -- Richard Donner was proud of this? Or the studio? Who, exactly, thought this worked?
Onward. The script isn't very well fleshed out, and the surprises -- few and far between -- aren't particularly thrilling. Some moments are incomprehensible -- a guard searching for Broderick's character sees him about to raise the grate and enter a cathedral, where he can easily be captured; the guard steps on Broderick's fingers, however, allowing him to fall back into the labyrinth where he can now afford escape. Um, huh?
Steven Soderbergh is currently taking a old dud and reimagining it as a new piece, which is really the thing to do. Leave alone our Psychos, our Rashomans, our Shops Around The Corners. Fix up promising but failed dreck like this.
What's right: the cinematography is terrific (see the widescreen version), and the lead performances are, on the whole, good. Matthew Broderick is charming much of the time in a role which requires charm -- often a recipe for disaster. Here, by and large, it works. Pfieffer and Hauer are servicable. Some of the minor performers are grating, however.
What's wrong: oh, Lord, where to start? The music, since it provides the first truly teeth-grinding moment. The inventive opening credits are rolling along, nice and evocative, and the music is dim and unobtrusive. Suddenly, this horrid contemporary studio pop kicks in, and my first thought was, "This is going to be a long movie." Then I saw the Alan Parsons credit and I groaned. I used to like Parsons' better stuff, but his worst is pretty unlistenable. Chalk up the score to Ladyhawke among his worst. He creates a theme for the movie and hammers it again and again -- for the first third of the film, with very little variation. And it's so far forward in the mix, I had to wonder -- Richard Donner was proud of this? Or the studio? Who, exactly, thought this worked?
Onward. The script isn't very well fleshed out, and the surprises -- few and far between -- aren't particularly thrilling. Some moments are incomprehensible -- a guard searching for Broderick's character sees him about to raise the grate and enter a cathedral, where he can easily be captured; the guard steps on Broderick's fingers, however, allowing him to fall back into the labyrinth where he can now afford escape. Um, huh?
Steven Soderbergh is currently taking a old dud and reimagining it as a new piece, which is really the thing to do. Leave alone our Psychos, our Rashomans, our Shops Around The Corners. Fix up promising but failed dreck like this.