Robin Hood

Click Title to go to the IMDb Page.

Starring: Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Mark Strong, Matthew Macfadyn, William Hurt
Director: Ridley Scott
Certificate: 12A
Year: 2010 
 

In Short: A rather mundane remake of Scott/Crowe effort Gladiator, over-complicated language from another Hood who cannot speak with an English accent (it ranges from Irish to a bizarre blend of Scottish and Australian, clearly another actor who got the ‘British‘ accent from Dick Van Dyke). Some good turns from Blanchett and Oscar Isaacs as Marian and Prince John.

In Full: Robin Hood is a classic British legend which has received more than one American interpretation, this latest effort consists of old time pals Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe (who have worked together on four films previous to this one) along with a range of famous faces with not much to do and yet another baddie to add to Mark Strong’s resumé.

We are led to believe the movie will reveal the ‘untold story’ of Robin Hood the man, but as far as I can see, there is very little different from anything we have seen before though unfortunately, not as enjoyable this time around.

The scenery was very formulaic for a medieval war film (see Lord of the Rings, Braveheart, Gladiator), never-the-less it works in the movies favour as we are familiar with the set and the expectations we have for this sort of movie help to carry it along and as we all know, mud and blood spattered men are popular to both men and women (though, I assume, for different reasons).

One thing that doesn’t work in the movie’s favour, however, is the language which seems to be a blend of bad Shakespeare and as many metaphors as Brian Helgoland (the writer) could think of. It is clichéd and rather broken making for difficult viewing in what should really be a popcorn flick.

The trailer gives a pretty accurate impression of what you are going to see (which is more than I can say for a lot of films) though I was impressed by Blanchett’s performance, something I had not anticipated from her screen time in the trailer. This is a small reprieve for a movie which is quite obviously an attempt to claw back some of Ridley/Crowe’s former glory. They may as well have called it Gladiator 2.0.

All in all, a movie worth watching if you can manage to completely switch your brain off for 140 minutes and forget everything you had ever been told about Robin Hood. I would stick to the 1991 Kevin Costner version (which is worth watching for Alan Rickman alone)














or the 1973 animated version, Hood never looked so good as when he was a fox. 

See The Movie If You Liked: Beowulf (Robert Zemeckis, 2007), Gladiator (Ridley Scott, 2000), DragonHeart (Rob Cohen, 1996)