Robin Hood (allegedly)

Director: Ridley Scott
Starring: Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Mark Strong, Max Von Sydow
Review: 2 stars (of five)

Note: The images from this movie are as dull as the film itself. Instead we’re using random shots from the red carpet at the premiere, of actors not in this tour-de-bore. (They are smiling because they haven’t seen it yet.)

In honor of the new Robin Hood’s decision to jettison all that is “Robin Hood” in favor of political posturing and war, let’s sum up the film in one pithy acronym: RHINO—Robin Hood In Name Only.

If you take the concept of Robin Hood, subtract the forest hijinx, the merry men and the rob-rich/give-poor dynamic, if you subtract the sheriff of Nottingham, if you make King Richard nearly as unlikeable as his brother John, if you get rid of the madcap archery tricks … if you do all this you will have subtracted all the color from the Robin Hood myth. The upside is, you’d be left with a very, very short Robin Hood movie, right? No such luck—Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe provide nearly two and a half hours of gray, boring cinema, with a tremendous number of gray, boring subplots, all to provide a “secret origin” to Robin Hood.

This is appallingly stupid. I’m pretty sure Robin Hood has the simplest, best-loved premise of any character ever, quasi-historical or otherwise. Everyone in the English-speaking world, and well beyond, knows who Robin Hood is and what to expect in a film called Robin Hood. So, hey, ballsy cinematic choice to not give them any of it.

There are only three good things to say about this movie. One: Cate Blanchett is a pleasure even in a bad movie. Two: This film originally began as a project in which Crowe would play the Sheriff of Nottingham as the sympathetic lead character, so let’s be glad that didn’t get made. And third: This film is such a tedious exercise in not looking anything like Robin Hood that there’s no chance of stealing the stature of the Douglas Fairbanks or Errol Flynn versions, or even the Kevin Costner one.

The film is a joyless, war-smeared exercise that reminds me of the recent Clash of the Titans remake/debacle, which also sucked all the magic and life from a wonderful myth with earlier cinematic incarnations, only to replace it with a war movie paean to the relentlessly common man, to the shaved-head soldier as the only acceptable model of heroism, and the relentless horror of war as the only acceptable adventure. Robin Hood is portrayed as an early democracy advocate, pushing the Magna Carta 15 years early, in a way that feels like a very deliberate attempt to push America’s hardwired rah-rah buttons (kinda the way Sherlock Holmes had to find a lame way to make the bad guy a terrorist threat to America).

Maybe the filmmakers feared that a faithful Robin Hood movie these days would draw Tea Party protests (rob from rich + give to poor = socialism!). Maybe they think that swapping a long, ugly war movie for the usually kid-friendly content of anything “Robin Hood” is a pretty funny joke. Maybe they think that a Robin Hood who has any fun at all wouldn’t be butch enough for today’s audience, weaned on the violent, the crass, the nihilistic.

Maybe the filmmakers are all that cynical. If so, I’d say it’s because they’ve been watching too many recent movies.