Noble Nerd

TAKE A CLASSIC TALE of medieval love and romance, add a dash of Runyonesque comic relief, a soupcon of high-tech editing a jazzy MTV soundtrack and seal it with a magical spell and you've got Ladyhawke. This cinematic hodgepodge of seemingly incompatible elements really resolves itself into an eighties version of the Arthurian romance, replete with ladies fair and valiant men of arms.

Up and coming Matthew Broderick steals the show as Phillippe the Mouse, a devil-may-care pickpocket who saunters through impenetrable fortresses, subterranean passageways and enchanted forests. In the process of extricating himself from the grasp of some rather unsavory soldiers charges with reimprisonng the lawless but lovable Phillippe in the infamous prison of Aguila, our hero meets up with Nararre, the aforementioned chivalrous knight who rescues the Mouse just in time and spirits him off to safety.

Grateful rogue that he is, Phillippe offers himself to Navarre as a sort of medieval boy Friday who does everything from preparing the nightly repast to breaking evil curses and, in his off duty hours, understudying as a defender of honour and truth.

Bumbling his way through 13th Century France, Broderick'ss Phillippe is the quintessential nerd-in-shining armor. Responding to Navarre's grandiloquent statement that Phillippe's arrival is a sign from God that Navarre must meet his destiny by murdering the vile Bishop who has cast a spell over Navarre and his lady love Isabeau (Michelle Pfeitter), the Mouse quips, "Well, Sir, I talk to God all the time, but meaning no disrespect he never mentioned you."

Broderick does a good job ogling Pfeitter "the face of love itself"), but like a good champion in training suppresson his boyish fantasies out of respect for Navarre. After some is needed for more important things, like breaking the evil spell that turns Navarre into a wolf each night and Isabeau into a falcon each day. Seemingly the only mortal lead to retain his human form for more than two hours at a stretch, Phillippe becomes a go-between for the star-crossed lovers, embellishing their tender messages with fanciful tidbits from his own overripe romantic imagination. The lovers' tragic separation gradually softens Phillippe's cynical and egocentric approach to life so that by the film's conclusion, the delinquent is reduced to a blubbering sentimentalist, sobbing over the pain of unrequired love and the joy of its ultimate resolution.

Although the lady isn't too tair, the knight rather cold, and the curse endlessly re-enacted until a weary audience secretly hopes that Isabeau and Navarre will never again be able to meet as two human beings, Ladyhawke is a refreshing change of pace from the quagmire of Police Academy II's and Friday the 13th, Part V's currently flooding the movies theaters. A touch of Stephen Spielberg would spice up the plot and quicken the pace but Broderick manages to fill in the gaps quite well all by himself.