Robin Hood

At the movie theater where I work, there is no way to annoy my co-worker more than mentioning that Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott are working together again/ Crowe has appeared in the last 4 Scott movies and while they have had varied degrees of success, critically and financially, those of us that work at The State Theater believe it should stop. I was never excited about Robin Hood. I watched it go through all kinds of changes in script, casting and even the basic story structure, but it never once sparked my interest. When the trailers were released, I still felt nothing. And I love movies with Bows and Arrows. I love that cliche follow the arrow shot and I love watching hundreds of arrows flying through the air. However, there was just something too on the nose for me about this. Of course, Ridley Scott was directing with Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett. You need a villain, of course Mark Strong would be that villain. You need a wise older man, who else would be but William Hurt. It was all just too easy, too convenient. I probably never would have actually seen it if my free movie ticket was not expiring, but it was and I did.

Robin Longstride(Crowe) is an honest man, a good archer, and a good soldier. However, when his honesty gets him in trouble with King Richard(The always valuable Danny Huston) he decides it is time to cut his losses and leave the army. When Richard is killed in battle, Robin and his band of merry men make their break for it, but they run across a bunch of dead soldiers who were returning the crown to the king. He assumes the identity of Sir Robert of Loxley to take the crown to London and to take a fallen soldier's sword home. His sense of duty brings him to Nottingham where he continues to take on the part of Robert of Loxley in order to protect the real Robert's wife, Marion(Blanchett)from losing everything. Meanwhile the new king, John starts taxing like crazy and anyone who will not listen gets their cities destroyed by Godfrey(Strong) and his evil army. Godfrey is a trusted confidant of the new king, but he has an agenda of his own, starting with killing our fair hero, Robin/Robert.

This Robin Hood is an origin story. We see Robin the Hood before he became the "Rob the rich to give to the poor" legend we all know. He is an honest man who works outside of the law because of a corrupt ruler. While he is wonderful with a bow and arrow, we rarely see him with one. In fact, we rarely see anyone with any weapons because there is this giant chunk in the middle of the movie where nothing even remotely interesting in happening. Are we supposed to care to watch Robin and Marion fall in love? She never actually grieves her dead husband, but since we find out they only spent a week together, that is supposed to make it okay. We know Robin and Marion are going to end up together, so why not give us more action?? I want to see Robin wielding his bow and arrow! I want to watch Little John swing his weapons on some unsuspecting villain. I do not want to watch Robin and Marion riding horses trading life stories.

The film making is also very lazy. I felt like I knew every single shot, cut, color scheme and action movement before it happened. I believe i have seen this movie about a dozen times, and this one lacked the energy to even care about switching it up even just a little bit. Ridley Scott is man who has directed his fair share of wonderful movies, but this felt like a paycheck for everyone involved. No one even tried to make something interesting or unique. They just gave me exactly what I expected them to give me. There was no creative spark to be found anywhere. Even Mark Strong, an actor I think has amazing potential, was just essentially rehashing his Sherlock Holmes villain. He is better than this. Go check out out Body of Lies. This guy has more going for him than just being the new Andy Garcia.

I know I expected nothing, and some might say that clouded my ability to enjoy the movie, but I disagree. I went in hoping to be surprised. It is not my fault no one showed up for work with a glint in their eye. Russell Crowe is only good when he is challenged by some outside force and here, his biggest struggle was keeping an accent. Now, I am not one to talking about using accents, but I am also not paid 15 million dollars to appear in a movie. I am not saying his British needs to be perfect, I am just saying it needs to be steady. He needs to keep the same accent for the entire movie, or just do not use one. I was far more distracted by his varying accent than I would have been listening to an Australian Robin Hood. He does not have the charm to pull off Robin Hood. Crowe is a lumbering laborious actor who is better when he is not supposed to be charming. If you wanted an Aussie for this job, they should have gone with Hugh Jackman.

I hope this is the worst movie I see this summer. I was bored out of mind and even the climatic battle, which should have been awesome left me yawning and not caring one bit about what happened to anyone. Maybe I just wanted my Robin Hood to be a Robin Hood movies, not some dumb generic movie. I wanted the Sherwood Forrest, the Sheriff of Nottingham to be a big part and I wanted to watch Robin Hood rob rich people and give it to poor people. Is that really too much to ask?

Final Grade: F