22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Way before many Sword and Sorcery movies, March 23, 2007
Somebody needs to inform the official Amazon reviewer that this movie came out about 8 years BEFORE Willow and 3 years BEFORE Krull. Willow and Krull would have to be big budget reflections of Hawk the Slayer, not the other away around. Hawk came out even before the Conan movies.
It's a shame that B-budget films don't get the credit they deserve. Hammy acted Hawk the Slayer set a lot of standards for the 80's sword and sorcery genre. The idea of an assorted group of D & D like characters getting together under the guidance of a mysterious magical woman became an 80's cliche. But coming out in 1980 it's literally impossible that Hawk copied the others.
To any teenage kid, that machine gun crossbow was a fascinating toy. The movie was a vehicle for showing fantasy elements that later became trite, and often seen, but were interesting at the time.
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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful!, September 16, 2003
A dreadful script, terrible dialogue, awful directing, bad acting, lots of Ham, silly special effects, overused locations, no plot whatsoever - I can't think of anything bad to say about this film. With the exception of John Terry (here playing the hero as a large plank of wood) no-one is taking this nonsense remotely seriously - as well they shouldn't. Being pros however, they serve the (cough) script well with some superb ham acting. There are umpteen British character actors you've seen before, all of whom give it the works- delivering dreadful lines and non sequiturs with the just the right amount of strait-laced portentiousness. Jack Palance's Voltan is equally entertaining, wheezing and overegging his way through every scene, assaulting nuns, villagers and loaves of bread. In fact, the whole film is merely a race against time to prevent him carrying out his initial threat of slicing every leavened or unleavened loaf in 'the land'.
An excellent way to hang the brain out to dry for a while, while you drink beer and laugh until you choke.
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32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not great cinema, but great fun to watch!, May 3, 2003
Sure, it's difficult to watch now, but this movie was pivotal in my formative years, having fuelled my love for fantasy as a pre-adolescent in the early 80s. I will forever champion it in a slagging match, and can't fully understand why some have turned on it as they've matured.
In its time it was GOD, and one can plainly see the inspiration it had on the modern Lord of the Rings films, at least on Legolas' character. Crow, the elf in this film, and his rapid-fire bow work was quite an original concept regardless of how badly it was portrayed. Nowhere in LOTR does Tolkien refer to any of the fast paced archery skills as represented in the LOTR films, so somebody clearly took the quick-shooting elf concept from Hawk. As cheesy as it is here, it is still cool to watch, even though his robotic Vulcan-like performance is dreadful.
For trivia buffs, Annette Crosbie, who plays the Abbess in Hawk, also gave the voice to Galadriel in the 1978 Bakshi animated Lord of the Rings.
Don't misunderstand: I am certainly not comparing Hawk to Peter Jackson's LOTR films. NOTHING compares to those. All I'm saying is that I'm sure this film has given some inspiration to other fantasy filmmakers, with its unquestionably original take on certain concepts.
Many of the actors here are plainly better than the script allows them to be, but Jack Palance is ridiculous as Hawk's older brother (he looks as old as their father), and his casting was completely ludicrous. Also, the film could do without the dwarf, and his demise is proof of that. It was chiefly directed at the Dungeons & Dragons audience, and probably succeeded in winning them over
Ultimately, as with Jackson's LOTR saga, the elf steals the show with his poorly editted dexterous bow work, which is always interesting to watch.
I for one will never call this a "bad" movie, even though it's sorely lacking in many categories. It's actually closer to "Dungeons and Dragons" than the Dungeons and Dragons movie was! For its time it ruled, and I will always have a soft spot for it. Hawk the Slayer has a certain charm, in its attempt to take itself seriously, which cannot be denied. My rating is primarily based on sentiment rather than the film's place in history.
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