Robin Hood, one of the most treasured tales in literary history. The story of a flip-sided world where nobility is evil and criminals are heroes has been retold many times in written word, film and more, so it was only a matter of time before it joined the trend of movies of the 2000s and was made epic.
The attempt was made by Ridley Scott and his go-to guy, Russell Crowe, and how was it? Well, I was hearing nothing but bombardments of negativity about this movie as I prepared myself to face this movie, and maybe the lowered expectations could be to blame, but I actually kinda liked it.
We’ll get the negatives out of the way first. Straight up, it’s impossible not to subconsciously draw comparisons between this film and the many past film adaptations of the Robin Hood story, so it’s easy to condemn a movie for lacking what might have been your favourite aspect of a past version. It lacks the light-hearted fun of the past movies, but one must remind themselves that A: Ridley Scott was going for the darker, grittier tale of Robin Hood as it is the way things are done here in the 2000s, and B: When you think about it, this is a story told between The Crusades and The Hundred Years War, so, yeah this wasn’t exactly the happiest of eras in British history.
A sad note for me personally is that this version just lacked the charm of its predecessors. Every adaptation of the Robin Hood story, whether it be family friendly or the dark-by-the-time’s-standards Prince of Thieves version, both still had the timeless characters who, despite any positive or negative character traits, had a charm about them that made you care about these characters; hero or villain, these are characters that had a charisma about them that made you care what might happen to them in the next scene. This version lacks that quite severely; not in all cases, but enough to hurt the overall experience.
Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchette are possibly the movie’s biggest detractions… sad to say especially as they are the lead roles. Cate as lady Marian just seems empty and stoic. I’m sure her portrayal was meant to show her as strong-willed and determined, but her lack of visible acknowledgement regarding emotions her character would be feeling makes her seem to hardened; she makes an attempt to remedy this near the film’s end, but by then it seems too late and it’s like she’s trying to backtrack.
Russell Crowe as Robin Hood… he didn’t do a bad job per se, but it wasn’t one of his better roles. First issue is just the overly angst-ridden Robin Hood we’re given. I can appreciate that maybe he’s not clicking his heels or running through the forest singing Oo-de-lally oo-de-lally golly what a day… sorry I had to… but the fact remains that at times he comes across as pretentious, it’s like he’s trying to be Christian Bale’s Batman, but instead is more reminiscent of the kids from Twilight. The character has clear father resentment, but when a revelation is made about it, first off it makes the viewer think “wow what a dick, he got mad at his dad for THAT?” but then the fact that he comes to grips with it, without any reliable evidence at first, so easily makes his character seem weak-willed and gullible.
Another big issue with these two is that we’re supposed to buy that they’re in their mid thirties at the oldest! It’s so forced on the audience that it feels almost like the director was mocking their intelligence. Mind you the placements also don’t help any as the merry men are, I’m guessing, all in their early twenties while one other is mid twenties, meanwhile you have Russell hanging out with them; it’s like when you go to a bar and there’s a group of girls and one of them clearly brought their mother, you can try your hardest to hide it, but it’s still pretty obvious. Meanwhile we’re supposed to believe that this middle-aged and kinda rough looking Marian, who lives in a town full of lovely young girls and we know this because they’re shown liberally, we’re supposed to buy it when every single male character in the film makes her the object of his lustful desires. I’m sorry but I can’t buy that, if you want the audience to believe that these are young characters, then just hire younger actors!
The final notable flaw in this film is just a lack in character depth. Development suffers in many areas but we are given enough to go on, but the depth of these characters is painful. They’re all just so one dimensional: heroes are heroes, villains are villains, that’s all there is to it; you know who you’re supposed to like, but with such shallow characters, it was hard if not impossible to care about these characters, so when events that are supposed to be Earth-shattering happen to these characters, the moment is lost because frankly the audience doesn’t care.
But enough of the negatives, let’s get in to what I did like.
Minus the lead roles, this movie was brilliantly casted and every one of them sold it damn well. Max von Sydow is just brilliant in his role as the blind and elderly Walter Loxley, the charm that lacks from the main leads is more than compensated for with him. He is given limited screen time and is more of a plot device than anything else, but he owns the screen when he’s on it and really build pathos as an aging old man trying to find some happiness left in the ashes of what used to be life.
The merry men, my God these guys were brilliant. Every one of them were masterfully handled, and though their screen time was limited, they all filled their roles perfectly. Friar Tuck remained steadfast as the loveable rotund boozehound with a heart of gold, Will Scarlet was the charismatic and quick-witted comic relief, Allan A’Dayle was the mindful and artistic musician (but what can you expect from a character played by the frontman of Great Big Sea?) Last but hardly least is of course Little John, who has changed the stereotypical simple-minded brute of a best friend and is smart, but just gullible. He’s the group’s enforcer and portrays his combat prowess wonderfully on screen while still managing to be a loveable galoot outside of combat.
On to the villains.
First let me vent on the mistreatment of The Sheriff of Nottingham. Here you have one of literature’s most renowned villains, and he was little more than comic relief in the all of five scenes he was in. Instead of the cunning and manipulative fiend that we’re used to, instead we’re given the equivalent of a goofy crooked cop that you would see on a sitcom.
King John, though taken way up in the despicable department, is played more like a believable villain. He felt like a tongue-in-cheek jab and some of today’s world leaders as his focuses were just money and war; the critique of modern politicians reaches its pinnacle as King John declares he will lead his men into battle, but then once he sees it first hand he has second thoughts and realizes it may not be the glorious walk in the park he assumed it to be.
So with Sheriff all but useless, and King John a terrific political villain but a weak confrontational villain, it opened the doors for Godfrey the Marshal. This character is appointed as King John’s new enforcer midway through the film, and deceives even his fellow villains as he has designs of his own. It’s a brilliantly played villain in all areas but one: his motivation for doing what he does are never really clearly explained, he’s given this political position and power outside of his original plans, and yet he continues to do what he does. He was great but just a look at why he’s doing what he does would have been nice. Oh yeah and he’s played by Mark Strong who, let’s face it, is rocking the villain game these days.
The story is fairly standard Robin Hood fare, though there’s much more focus on Robin the crusader not Robin the bandit who robs from the rich and gives to the poor; but it is an origin story so that could be yet to come, but with lead roles who didn’t sell their parts and aren’t getting any younger, one must wonder if a sequel can even be in the cards.
So that’s Robin Hood for you. Is it a stellar epic? Well, no not really. There are some epic moments, but they felt very borrowed from other movies *cough Saving Private Ryan cough* but is it a bad movie? Not at all, I almost kind of think a lot of these condemning revie
ws I’ve read were a bit unfair to the film. I do agree that the lead roles come close to falling flat on their faces several times, but the rest of the cast as well as the unique twist on the timeless story does make for a fun movie.
I’m out.
written by Lee Clifford
Robin Hood, one of the most treasured tales in literary history. The story of a flip-sided world where nobility is evil and criminals are heroes has been retold many times in written word, film and more, so it was only a matter of time before it joined the trend of movies of the 2000s and was made epic.
The attempt was made by Ridley Scott and his go-to guy, Russell Crowe, and how was it? Well, I was hearing nothing but bombardments of negativity about this movie as I prepared myself to face this movie, and maybe the lowered expectations could be to blame, but I actually kinda liked it.
We’ll get the negatives out of the way first. Straight up, it’s impossible not to subconsciously draw comparisons between this film and the many past film adaptations of the Robin Hood story, so it’s easy to condemn a movie for lacking what might have been your favourite aspect of a past version. It lacks the light-hearted fun of the past movies, but one must remind themselves that A: Ridley Scott was going for the darker, grittier tale of Robin Hood as it is the way things are done here in the 2000s, and B: When you think about it, this is a story told between The Crusades and The Hundred Years War, so, yeah this wasn’t exactly the happiest of eras in British history.
A sad note for me personally is that this version just lacked the charm of its predecessors. Every adaptation of the Robin Hood story, whether it be family friendly or the dark-by-the-time’s-standards Prince of Thieves version, both still had the timeless characters who, despite any positive or negative character traits, had a charm about them that made you care about these characters; hero or villain, these are characters that had a charisma about them that made you care what might happen to them in the next scene. This version lacks that quite severely; not in all cases, but enough to hurt the overall experience.
Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchette are possibly the movie’s biggest detractions… sad to say especially as they are the lead roles. Cate as lady Marian just seems empty and stoic. I’m sure her portrayal was meant to show her as strong-willed and determined, but her lack of visible acknowledgement regarding emotions her character would be feeling makes her seem to hardened; she makes an attempt to remedy this near the film’s end, but by then it seems too late and it’s like she’s trying to backtrack.
Russell Crowe as Robin Hood… he didn’t do a bad job per se, but it wasn’t one of his better roles. First issue is just the overly angst-ridden Robin Hood we’re given. I can appreciate that maybe he’s not clicking his heels or running through the forest singing Oo-de-lally oo-de-lally golly what a day… sorry I had to… but the fact remains that at times he comes across as pretentious, it’s like he’s trying to be Christian Bale’s Batman, but instead is more reminiscent of the kids from Twilight. The character has clear father resentment, but when a revelation is made about it, first off it makes the viewer think “wow what a dick, he got mad at his dad for THAT?” but then the fact that he comes to grips with it, without any reliable evidence at first, so easily makes his character seem weak-willed and gullible.
Another big issue with these two is that we’re supposed to buy that they’re in their mid thirties at the oldest! It’s so forced on the audience that it feels almost like the director was mocking their intelligence. Mind you the placements also don’t help any as the merry men are, I’m guessing, all in their early twenties while one other is mid twenties, meanwhile you have Russell hanging out with them; it’s like when you go to a bar and there’s a group of girls and one of them clearly brought their mother, you can try your hardest to hide it, but it’s still pretty obvious. Meanwhile we’re supposed to believe that this middle-aged and kinda rough looking Marian, who lives in a town full of lovely young girls and we know this because they’re shown liberally, we’re supposed to buy it when every single male character in the film makes her the object of his lustful desires. I’m sorry but I can’t buy that, if you want the audience to believe that these are young characters, then just hire younger actors!
The final notable flaw in this film is just a lack in character depth. Development suffers in many areas but we are given enough to go on, but the depth of these characters is painful. They’re all just so one dimensional: heroes are heroes, villains are villains, that’s all there is to it; you know who you’re supposed to like, but with such shallow characters, it was hard if not impossible to care about these characters, so when events that are supposed to be Earth-shattering happen to these characters, the moment is lost because frankly the audience doesn’t care.
But enough of the negatives, let’s get in to what I did like.
Minus the lead roles, this movie was brilliantly casted and every one of them sold it damn well. Max von Sydow is just brilliant in his role as the blind and elderly Walter Loxley, the charm that lacks from the main leads is more than compensated for with him. He is given limited screen time and is more of a plot device than anything else, but he owns the screen when he’s on it and really build pathos as an aging old man trying to find some happiness left in the ashes of what used to be life.
The merry men, my God these guys were brilliant. Every one of them were masterfully handled, and though their screen time was limited, they all filled their roles perfectly. Friar Tuck remained steadfast as the loveable rotund boozehound with a heart of gold, Will Scarlet was the charismatic and quick-witted comic relief, Allan A’Dayle was the mindful and artistic musician (but what can you expect from a character played by the frontman of Great Big Sea?) Last but hardly least is of course Little John, who has changed the stereotypical simple-minded brute of a best friend and is smart, but just gullible. He’s the group’s enforcer and portrays his combat prowess wonderfully on screen while still managing to be a loveable galoot outside of combat.
On to the villains.
First let me vent on the mistreatment of The Sheriff of Nottingham. Here you have one of literature’s most renowned villains, and he was little more than comic relief in the all of five scenes he was in. Instead of the cunning and manipulative fiend that we’re used to, instead we’re given the equivalent of a goofy crooked cop that you would see on a sitcom.
King John, though taken way up in the despicable department, is played more like a believable villain. He felt like a tongue-in-cheek jab and some of today’s world leaders as his focuses were just money and war; the critique of modern politicians reaches its pinnacle as King John declares he will lead his men into battle, but then once he sees it first hand he has second thoughts and realizes it may not be the glorious walk in the park he assumed it to be.
So with Sheriff all but useless, and King John a terrific political villain but a weak confrontational villain, it opened the doors for Godfrey the Marshal. This character is appointed as King John’s new enforcer midway through the film, and deceives even his fellow villains as he has designs of his own. It’s a brilliantly played villain in all areas but one: his motivation for doing what he does are never really clearly explained, he’s given this political position and power outside of his original plans, and yet he continues to do what he does. He was great but just a look at why he’s doing what he does would have been nice. Oh yeah and he’s played by Mark Strong who, let’s face it, is rocking the villain game these days.
The story is fairly standard Robin Hood fare, though there’s much more focus on Robin the crusader not Robin the bandit who robs from the rich and gives to the poor; but it is an origin story so that could be yet to come, but with lead roles who didn’t sell their parts and aren’t getting any younger, one must wonder if a sequel can even be in the cards.
So that’s Robin Hood for you. Is it a stellar epic? Well, no not really. There are some epic moments, but they felt very borrowed from other movies *cough Saving Private Ryan cough* but is it a bad movie? Not at all, I almost kind of think a lot of these condemning revie
ws I’ve read were a bit unfair to the film. I do agree that the lead roles come close to falling flat on their faces several times, but the rest of the cast as well as the unique twist on the timeless story does make for a fun movie.
I’m out.
written by Lee Clifford
Robin Hood, one of the most treasured tales in literary history. The story of a flip-sided world where nobility is evil and criminals are heroes has been retold many times in written word, film and more, so it was only a matter of time before it joined the trend of movies of the 2000s and was made epic.
The attempt was made by Ridley Scott and his go-to guy, Russell Crowe, and how was it? Well, I was hearing nothing but bombardments of negativity about this movie as I prepared myself to face this movie, and maybe the lowered expectations could be to blame, but I actually kinda liked it.
We’ll get the negatives out of the way first. Straight up, it’s impossible not to subconsciously draw comparisons between this film and the many past film adaptations of the Robin Hood story, so it’s easy to condemn a movie for lacking what might have been your favourite aspect of a past version. It lacks the light-hearted fun of the past movies, but one must remind themselves that A: Ridley Scott was going for the darker, grittier tale of Robin Hood as it is the way things are done here in the 2000s, and B: When you think about it, this is a story told between The Crusades and The Hundred Years War, so, yeah this wasn’t exactly the happiest of eras in British history.
A sad note for me personally is that this version just lacked the charm of its predecessors. Every adaptation of the Robin Hood story, whether it be family friendly or the dark-by-the-time’s-standards Prince of Thieves version, both still had the timeless characters who, despite any positive or negative character traits, had a charm about them that made you care about these characters; hero or villain, these are characters that had a charisma about them that made you care what might happen to them in the next scene. This version lacks that quite severely; not in all cases, but enough to hurt the overall experience.
Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchette are possibly the movie’s biggest detractions… sad to say especially as they are the lead roles. Cate as lady Marian just seems empty and stoic. I’m sure her portrayal was meant to show her as strong-willed and determined, but her lack of visible acknowledgement regarding emotions her character would be feeling makes her seem to hardened; she makes an attempt to remedy this near the film’s end, but by then it seems too late and it’s like she’s trying to backtrack.
Russell Crowe as Robin Hood… he didn’t do a bad job per se, but it wasn’t one of his better roles. First issue is just the overly angst-ridden Robin Hood we’re given. I can appreciate that maybe he’s not clicking his heels or running through the forest singing Oo-de-lally oo-de-lally golly what a day… sorry I had to… but the fact remains that at times he comes across as pretentious, it’s like he’s trying to be Christian Bale’s Batman, but instead is more reminiscent of the kids from Twilight. The character has clear father resentment, but when a revelation is made about it, first off it makes the viewer think “wow what a dick, he got mad at his dad for THAT?” but then the fact that he comes to grips with it, without any reliable evidence at first, so easily makes his character seem weak-willed and gullible.
Another big issue with these two is that we’re supposed to buy that they’re in their mid thirties at the oldest! It’s so forced on the audience that it feels almost like the director was mocking their intelligence. Mind you the placements also don’t help any as the merry men are, I’m guessing, all in their early twenties while one other is mid twenties, meanwhile you have Russell hanging out with them; it’s like when you go to a bar and there’s a group of girls and one of them clearly brought their mother, you can try your hardest to hide it, but it’s still pretty obvious. Meanwhile we’re supposed to believe that this middle-aged and kinda rough looking Marian, who lives in a town full of lovely young girls and we know this because they’re shown liberally, we’re supposed to buy it when every single male character in the film makes her the object of his lustful desires. I’m sorry but I can’t buy that, if you want the audience to believe that these are young characters, then just hire younger actors!
The final notable flaw in this film is just a lack in character depth. Development suffers in many areas but we are given enough to go on, but the depth of these characters is painful. They’re all just so one dimensional: heroes are heroes, villains are villains, that’s all there is to it; you know who you’re supposed to like, but with such shallow characters, it was hard if not impossible to care about these characters, so when events that are supposed to be Earth-shattering happen to these characters, the moment is lost because frankly the audience doesn’t care.
But enough of the negatives, let’s get in to what I did like.
Minus the lead roles, this movie was brilliantly casted and every one of them sold it damn well. Max von Sydow is just brilliant in his role as the blind and elderly Walter Loxley, the charm that lacks from the main leads is more than compensated for with him. He is given limited screen time and is more of a plot device than anything else, but he owns the screen when he’s on it and really build pathos as an aging old man trying to find some happiness left in the ashes of what used to be life.
The merry men, my God these guys were brilliant. Every one of them were masterfully handled, and though their screen time was limited, they all filled their roles perfectly. Friar Tuck remained steadfast as the loveable rotund boozehound with a heart of gold, Will Scarlet was the charismatic and quick-witted comic relief, Allan A’Dayle was the mindful and artistic musician (but what can you expect from a character played by the frontman of Great Big Sea?) Last but hardly least is of course Little John, who has changed the stereotypical simple-minded brute of a best friend and is smart, but just gullible. He’s the group’s enforcer and portrays his combat prowess wonderfully on screen while still managing to be a loveable galoot outside of combat.
On to the villains.
First let me vent on the mistreatment of The Sheriff of Nottingham. Here you have one of literature’s most renowned villains, and he was little more than comic relief in the all of five scenes he was in. Instead of the cunning and manipulative fiend that we’re used to, instead we’re given the equivalent of a goofy crooked cop that you would see on a sitcom.
King John, though taken way up in the despicable department, is played more like a believable villain. He felt like a tongue-in-cheek jab and some of today’s world leaders as his focuses were just money and war; the critique of modern politicians reaches its pinnacle as King John declares he will lead his men into battle, but then once he sees it first hand he has second thoughts and realizes it may not be the glorious walk in the park he assumed it to be.
So with Sheriff all but useless, and King John a terrific political villain but a weak confrontational villain, it opened the doors for Godfrey the Marshal. This character is appointed as King John’s new enforcer midway through the film, and deceives even his fellow villains as he has designs of his own. It’s a brilliantly played villain in all areas but one: his motivation for doing what he does are never really clearly explained, he’s given this political position and power outside of his original plans, and yet he continues to do what he does. He was great but just a look at why he’s doing what he does would have been nice. Oh yeah and he’s played by Mark Strong who, let’s face it, is rocking the villain game these days.
The story is fairly standard Robin Hood fare, though there’s much more focus on Robin the crusader not Robin the bandit who robs from the rich and gives to the poor; but it is an origin story so that could be yet to come, but with lead roles who didn’t sell their parts and aren’t getting any younger, one must wonder if a sequel can even be in the cards.
So that’s Robin Hood for you. Is it a stellar epic? Well, no not really. There are some epic moments, but they felt very borrowed from other movies *cough Saving Private Ryan cough* but is it a bad movie? Not at all, I almost kind of think a lot of these condemning revie
ws I’ve read were a bit unfair to the film. I do agree that the lead roles come close to falling flat on their faces several times, but the rest of the cast as well as the unique twist on the timeless story does make for a fun movie.
I’m out.
written by Lee Clifford
Robin Hood, one of the most treasured tales in literary history. The story of a flip-sided world where nobility is evil and criminals are heroes has been retold many times in written word, film and more, so it was only a matter of time before it joined the trend of movies of the 2000s and was made epic.
The attempt was made by Ridley Scott and his go-to guy, Russell Crowe, and how was it? Well, I was hearing nothing but bombardments of negativity about this movie as I prepared myself to face this movie, and maybe the lowered expectations could be to blame, but I actually kinda liked it.
We’ll get the negatives out of the way first. Straight up, it’s impossible not to subconsciously draw comparisons between this film and the many past film adaptations of the Robin Hood story, so it’s easy to condemn a movie for lacking what might have been your favourite aspect of a past version. It lacks the light-hearted fun of the past movies, but one must remind themselves that A: Ridley Scott was going for the darker, grittier tale of Robin Hood as it is the way things are done here in the 2000s, and B: When you think about it, this is a story told between The Crusades and The Hundred Years War, so, yeah this wasn’t exactly the happiest of eras in British history.
A sad note for me personally is that this version just lacked the charm of its predecessors. Every adaptation of the Robin Hood story, whether it be family friendly or the dark-by-the-time’s-standards Prince of Thieves version, both still had the timeless characters who, despite any positive or negative character traits, had a charm about them that made you care about these characters; hero or villain, these are characters that had a charisma about them that made you care what might happen to them in the next scene. This version lacks that quite severely; not in all cases, but enough to hurt the overall experience.
Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchette are possibly the movie’s biggest detractions… sad to say especially as they are the lead roles. Cate as lady Marian just seems empty and stoic. I’m sure her portrayal was meant to show her as strong-willed and determined, but her lack of visible acknowledgement regarding emotions her character would be feeling makes her seem to hardened; she makes an attempt to remedy this near the film’s end, but by then it seems too late and it’s like she’s trying to backtrack.
Russell Crowe as Robin Hood… he didn’t do a bad job per se, but it wasn’t one of his better roles. First issue is just the overly angst-ridden Robin Hood we’re given. I can appreciate that maybe he’s not clicking his heels or running through the forest singing Oo-de-lally oo-de-lally golly what a day… sorry I had to… but the fact remains that at times he comes across as pretentious, it’s like he’s trying to be Christian Bale’s Batman, but instead is more reminiscent of the kids from Twilight. The character has clear father resentment, but when a revelation is made about it, first off it makes the viewer think “wow what a dick, he got mad at his dad for THAT?” but then the fact that he comes to grips with it, without any reliable evidence at first, so easily makes his character seem weak-willed and gullible.
Another big issue with these two is that we’re supposed to buy that they’re in their mid thirties at the oldest! It’s so forced on the audience that it feels almost like the director was mocking their intelligence. Mind you the placements also don’t help any as the merry men are, I’m guessing, all in their early twenties while one other is mid twenties, meanwhile you have Russell hanging out with them; it’s like when you go to a bar and there’s a group of girls and one of them clearly brought their mother, you can try your hardest to hide it, but it’s still pretty obvious. Meanwhile we’re supposed to believe that this middle-aged and kinda rough looking Marian, who lives in a town full of lovely young girls and we know this because they’re shown liberally, we’re supposed to buy it when every single male character in the film makes her the object of his lustful desires. I’m sorry but I can’t buy that, if you want the audience to believe that these are young characters, then just hire younger actors!
The final notable flaw in this film is just a lack in character depth. Development suffers in many areas but we are given enough to go on, but the depth of these characters is painful. They’re all just so one dimensional: heroes are heroes, villains are villains, that’s all there is to it; you know who you’re supposed to like, but with such shallow characters, it was hard if not impossible to care about these characters, so when events that are supposed to be Earth-shattering happen to these characters, the moment is lost because frankly the audience doesn’t care.
But enough of the negatives, let’s get in to what I did like.
Minus the lead roles, this movie was brilliantly casted and every one of them sold it damn well. Max von Sydow is just brilliant in his role as the blind and elderly Walter Loxley, the charm that lacks from the main leads is more than compensated for with him. He is given limited screen time and is more of a plot device than anything else, but he owns the screen when he’s on it and really build pathos as an aging old man trying to find some happiness left in the ashes of what used to be life.
The merry men, my God these guys were brilliant. Every one of them were masterfully handled, and though their screen time was limited, they all filled their roles perfectly. Friar Tuck remained steadfast as the loveable rotund boozehound with a heart of gold, Will Scarlet was the charismatic and quick-witted comic relief, Allan A’Dayle was the mindful and artistic musician (but what can you expect from a character played by the frontman of Great Big Sea?) Last but hardly least is of course Little John, who has changed the stereotypical simple-minded brute of a best friend and is smart, but just gullible. He’s the group’s enforcer and portrays his combat prowess wonderfully on screen while still managing to be a loveable galoot outside of combat.
On to the villains.
First let me vent on the mistreatment of The Sheriff of Nottingham. Here you have one of literature’s most renowned villains, and he was little more than comic relief in the all of five scenes he was in. Instead of the cunning and manipulative fiend that we’re used to, instead we’re given the equivalent of a goofy crooked cop that you would see on a sitcom.
King John, though taken way up in the despicable department, is played more like a believable villain. He felt like a tongue-in-cheek jab and some of today’s world leaders as his focuses were just money and war; the critique of modern politicians reaches its pinnacle as King John declares he will lead his men into battle, but then once he sees it first hand he has second thoughts and realizes it may not be the glorious walk in the park he assumed it to be.
So with Sheriff all but useless, and King John a terrific political villain but a weak confrontational villain, it opened the doors for Godfrey the Marshal. This character is appointed as King John’s new enforcer midway through the film, and deceives even his fellow villains as he has designs of his own. It’s a brilliantly played villain in all areas but one: his motivation for doing what he does are never really clearly explained, he’s given this political position and power outside of his original plans, and yet he continues to do what he does. He was great but just a look at why he’s doing what he does would have been nice. Oh yeah and he’s played by Mark Strong who, let’s face it, is rocking the villain game these days.
The story is fairly standard Robin Hood fare, though there’s much more focus on Robin the crusader not Robin the bandit who robs from the rich and gives to the poor; but it is an origin story so that could be yet to come, but with lead roles who didn’t sell their parts and aren’t getting any younger, one must wonder if a sequel can even be in the cards.
So that’s Robin Hood for you. Is it a stellar epic? Well, no not really. There are some epic moments, but they felt very borrowed from other movies *cough Saving Private Ryan cough* but is it a bad movie? Not at all, I almost kind of think a lot of these condemning revie
ws I’ve read were a bit unfair to the film. I do agree that the lead roles come close to falling flat on their faces several times, but the rest of the cast as well as the unique twist on the timeless story does make for a fun movie.
