FILM REVIEW
05/14/10 (LONDON) Joel Meadows
Robin Hood
Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett
Studio: Universal Pictures
The new Robin Hood film directed by Ridley Scott and reuniting him with his regular collaborator Russell Crowe is a film that’s changed direction several times. Originally it was going to be called Nottingham and have the evil sheriff as its protagonist. But that idea was ditched and so what seemed like a more traditional Robin Hood tale was filmed. At last the results are available for all to see and I was lucky enough to catch a press screening of it at Empire Leicester Square, probably London’s nicest cinema.
Scott has played fast and loose with history here as Richard The Lionheart, played by a chunky Danny Huston, is dispatched quite early on here and it is Prince then King John (Oscar Isaac) who becomes Hood’s adversary. But it doesn’t matter as, like King Arthur, Robin Hood is a legend and a folk tale and criticising it for its lack of historical veracity is like accusing James Bond of inaccurately portraying modern space technology. It just doesn’t matter as what really counts is putting together a compelling and exciting cinematic ride and Scott with the help of Crowe and its supporting cast have certainly done that.
Here Crowe plays Robin Longstrides, a footman in King Richard’s army who, with his three mates Will Scarlet, Littlejohn and Alan A’Dale, are thrown into the stocks after insulting the King. When the King mets his untimely end, the foursome decide to make a hasty exit and flee France to come home. Unfortunately Prince John is a feckless playboy more interested in bedding the cousin of the King of France than taking the country in hand and turncoat Godfrey (a truly sinister Mark Strong) is determined to act as facilitator to allow the French to conquer what they see as a now weak country ripe for plucking. So Robin, after a promise to dying knight Sir Robert Loxley to bring word of his demise to his wife and father in Nottingham, makes his way to the Midlands in England and masquerades as Loxley. Loxley left a wife behind, Marion (Cate Blanchett) and so he lives with her, while her estate is endangered by local youths and the danger of the Sheriff of Nottingham taking his tithe. Things come to a head with Robin and his men joining forces with the barons and the King to prevent King Philip of France’s forces from taking England from the sea.
Robin Hood looks fantastic and is as rousing and exciting as Gladiator with everything definitely on screen. Crowe has come in for flak with his accent but the fact is that no-one knows definitively how the residents actually spoke in Nottingham during this period and so this is such a minor quibble. When we’ve had to suffer the bouffant-haired indignity of Kevin Costner and that Bryan Adams song in the 1991 version, a slightly inconsistent accent really isn’t anything that should cause concern. Crowe, as an older Robin, feels right on screen and another thing that Scott has done here is that the English look particularly unglamorous and down to earth and at no time are Robin or his fellow bowman dressed in Lincoln Green. The scenes where they use their bows in battle are shot and edited brilliantly with everything pared down and sparse. Mark Strong as traitorous English Knight Godfrey is a great villain and unlike most of the other films he’s appeared in over the last couple of years, he exudes menace and is perfectly cast here. Cate Blanchett as Marion is a little bit redundant here as she doesn’t have much to do except look pretty but in a Boy’s Own Adventure, the female characters don’t really play much of a part.
Robin Hood is a fantastically well-executed and entertaining summer movie with some amazing touches from Scott, who shows that he hasn’t lost his unique ability to bring something new to something seemingly so familiar, and the introduction of a backstory for Robin, where we see that his father was a crusader for better treatment for England’s people, which puts a new spin on proceedings while still fitting in with what Scott has brought to the screen. Things are left open for a sequel and the viewer comes out of the cinema hoping that a sequel will see the light of day. Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe should be very proud of what they’ve achieved here…