First, let's start with the story. Instead of going the traditional route of telling the warmed over story of Robin Hood taking from the rich and giving to the poor (an actual misnomer since in reality, Robin Hood took money from the government and gave it back to the people), Ridley Scott and crew decided to tell a prequel of sorts. The film's story gives us a glimpse into the early years of Robin Hood, and how he changed from being a soldier in the crusades to a man of people fighting for justice and the anglo-saxon way. The decision to change the story is the only non-traditional thing about "Robin Hood", but unfortunately it was a poor decision. I understand the desire to tackle the story of Robin Hood from a new perspective, as the traditional story of Robin Hood has been done ad nausiem by Hollywood over the years, but to include a preposterous back story about Robin Hood's father drafting the Magna Carta and put to death because of it, only to have Robin Hood rediscover it and introduce to Prince John, is just stupid.
Beyond the over-arching story, the screenplay is terrible as well. The dialogue is typical and cheesy, and the situational attempts at humor were taken from Action Movies 101. For instance, having Robin Hood (Russell Crowe) and Marion Loxley (Cate Blanchett) pretend to be husband and wife for the sole purpose of making them sleep in the same room so that she can threaten to "cut-off your manhood if you move", is so incredibly contrived and poorly written, that all I could think of is whether anyone involved actually felt like they were making a decent movie. Another outrageous example of the lazy cliches that make up this movie, is in the final "epic" battle scene. Cate Blanchett comes riding in to join the fray with a bunch of pre-teen boy "warriors", just so we know "woman can fight too", which I think Hollywood has made clear by now (even if it is not true). As dumb as this is on its own, when Robin Hood sees Marion he immediately approaches her and tells her she must leave, only to change his mind and tells her to join the fight two seconds later after a scornful look from Marion. Really? REALLY??
Another terribly cliched weakness of the film is its score. It was composed by Marc Steinfeild, but the name is obviously just a pseudonym for some computer program whose purpose is to compose Hans Zimmer rip-off scores. The score might as well be called Hans Zimmer score number 9. It takes all the worst tendencies of Zimmer and magnifies them about a thousand times. If you ever wonder what emotion your suppose to be feeling, don't worry, the score will let you know by hitting you over head with its emotional sledgehammer. Subtlety was definitely not on the mind (circuits) of Mr. Steinfeild when he was composing the score.
Finally, I must commit on the direction of Ridley Scott and the acting. At this point, Ridley Scott is simply paroding himself. I don't how many times he feels he must remake Gladiator, but after the mediocre "Kingdom of Heaven" and this movie, the polish on Gladiator is starting to fade. Ridley, we get you like the grainy look. We're tired of the quick-cut battle sequences with sped up motion to make it appear that more is happening on screen than in reality. Please move on to something else.
As for the cast, it is nothing to speak of either. Russel Crowe is stuck in his "tough-guy hero" purgatory that he seems determined to stay in. Cate Blanchett cashes in her check with her patented action woman routine. Oscar Isaac does some sort of "Joaquin Pheonix-lite" version as Prince John. None of it is memorable, and some of it is bad at times.
I didn't expect much from "Robin Hood", but it still disappointed me. At the beginning of the last decade, both Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott were two of my favorite people working in Hollywood. They teamed up together to great effect in 2000's "Gladiator", then in 2001 Ridley Scott made my favorite war film ever in "Black Hawk Down" and Russell Crowe gave the best performance of his career in "A Beautiful Mind". Since that time, the two have been on a downward spiral creatively, with an "anti-crescendo" of sorts in "Robin Hood". On the positive side though, there is nowhere to go but up from here (at least I hope so).
Rating: 4/10
Christopher Lominac
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