Cinema: Robin Hood
Cast: Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Mark Strong, William Hurt, Oscar Isaacs
Director: Ridley Scott
Screenwriter: Brian Helgeland
Robin Hood may be a very British historical figure but when portrayed on the big screen he has been subjected to a liberal use of shall we say ‘artistic licence.’ Disney gave the character a foxy tail, Mel Brooks mocked mercilessly him and his band of ‘men in tights’, and Kevin Costner decided that Robin of Loxley would most likely have spoken in a Texan accent and sported a dashing mullet not seen until the 1980s. And now, Russ ‘n’ Rid (Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott that is) have decided that the story needs a little retelling once more and so this week we see the release of the duo’s fifth collaboration, Robin Hood.
A prequel chronicling Robin of the Hood’s (Crowe) journey from Crusading archer (here depicted as something of a sniper-esque marksman) to champion of the poor via a return to his native England and Sommersby-like union with Maid Marrion (Blanchett), this take on the Nottingham legend tries to be everything to everyone but, despite its two hours plus running time, struggles to please anyone with any real conviction.
Scott, as can be seen from his extensive back catalogue from Alien and Blade Runner through to Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven, is a builder of worlds, a filmmaker with an unparalleled ability to conjure landscapes on the screen that are wholly immersive, and with Robin Hood he manages just such a feat once more. Recreating medieval England ,the depth lies in the detail; the mud splattered clothing and faces, the methods of warfare employed in a dazzling Crusade-set siege sequence at the film’s start in particular, the viewer is pitched headfirst into the 12th century so much so that you can almost smell it.
Scoitt fills his film with some winning performances too: the wisecracking sidekicks of Little John and co; a boo-hiss villain in Oscar Isaac’s scene stealing Prince-turned-King; Mark Strong’s shady, scar-faced political manipulator Sir Godfrey. Russell Crowe’s Robin Longstride, despite being saddled with an accent that veers from Australia to Yorksire and back again untold times, is just as much a cheery, cheeky chappy as he is an embittered freedom fighter. The sour-faced serio of the gladiator who sought his vengeance, ‘in this world or the next,’ he most definitely is not. It is all undertaken with a sense of fun, as well, with visual gags and dialogue delights that prove the ‘Gladiator with bows’ tags the film was saddled with to be wholly off the mark. Only this effervescent suurface doesn’t always work and when it doesn’t, there is little else to fall back on.
The plot, it must be said, ambles along with little momentum, and several of the extensive list of characters, Matthew Macfadyen’s Sheriff of Nottingham especially, are cruelly underused in a script that fails to give anyone any real time to shine. Despite all the political shennigans, betrayals and back-stabbings, attempts to underscore Robin’s anti-establishment journey with some greater meaning (the moral indefensibility of the Crusades; the plight of a public maltreated by an arrogant, self-serving ruling class) and his quest to discover the true fate that befell his father are only moderately successful. Despite the grandstanding Dover beach climax in which cavalry stampede out of medieval landing craft in a scene reminscent of the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan, Robin Hood is an action adventure with not enough of either that, sadly, favours presentation over purpose. Not a total misfire, but far from a bullseye either.
By Alasdair Morton
Robin Hood is released 12th May courtesy of Universal Pictures.
