It's future. Still our past.
I like Hudson Hawk. It takes some flack, maybe justified. I watch it without taking it seriously, which helps. I can't believe it's meant to be taken seriously, and if regarded as a parody, then it's fine. I'm biased, though. I tend to like Bruce Willis movies (though I haven't seen much he's done recently), and he plays a thief. We all know by now how much I like fictional thieves (enough to find DC's rebooted Wonder Girl intriguing, that's how much).
Anyway, I was thinking perhaps the movie needed to come out at a different time. It has this story about plans and items vital to Leonardo da Vinci's ultimate machine, hidden within his other inventions, and of course the Church is trying to run the show with their secret agents and all.
Do you think the movie would have been better regarded if it came out 15 years later, after The da Vinci Code, and the Tom Hanks' film, and the similar books and so on? Assume any changes made in Hudson Hawk's cast due to age are essentially lateral moves in talent and star power. I'm not certain who is a lateral move from James Coburn's awesomeness. Probably have to make up for his replacement's deficiencies with an upgrade elsewhere. Basically the same story, though it has to adjust some. Could you still wreck the economy in the mid-2000s by flooding it with gold? Could you even do that in the early 1990s?
"Better regarded" is the wrong term. Let's start with whether it would do better financially. With people who want to laugh at the folks who get really sucked in by that book? Or maybe people who are really into devouring any sort of entertainment related to the idea of hidden messages within Renaissance artists' works?
I imagine the critical reception wouldn't change much, since the movie's flaws would still exist, but you never know. Perhaps Hudson Hawk was ahead of its time.
OK, that's a bit much.
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3 comments:
Well, National Treasure made money I guess? Also not marketing a comedy as an action film to cash in on Die Hard might be a good idea.
In fact, given Willis' more lighthearted work in RED, Friends and suchlike since then such a film might be better received by Willis' target audience, so you're not perhaps wrong to say it was ahead of its time in that respect.
Note: I haven't seen the film but I like The Shadow and The Phantom, so I'm qualified to comment. :P
Matthew: I missed all the marketing, except the ads for the Game Boy game that were in lots of my comics from that time. Which certainly made it sound cool, but I can see how if it was promoted as action movie, that would be a strange experience.
I've also seen The Shadow and The Phantom, though it's been a few years for both (especially the Phantom). I like Hudson Hawk more than the latter, not quite as much as the former (which is a surprise considering I'm usually lukewarm on Alec Baldwin).
The Baldwins generally would not be my favourite actors, though I was very fond of Alec in The Hunt For Red October; more so than Harrison Ford in the later films to be honest.
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