Critics have taken aim at the latest tale of the King of Sherwood Forest. As Owen Gleiberman noted in his Entertainment Weekly review, there is not one scene in the new Robin Hood of Robin stealing from the rich, and his merry men are much scruffier n’er do wells than the big brown bear that follows the cartoon fox Robin around in one of my favorite Disney flicks.
But, should Ridley Scott be deemed an “Outlaw of the Realm” for his new take on the fabled history of Robin Hood? Is Russell Crowe worthy to don the green hood and wear the tights (tights! tights!) of the heroic robber baron? Is the new Robin Hood as footloose and fancy free as the Disney version, as hilarious as Cary Elwes’ Robin Hood: Men in Tights, or as swashbuckling as Errol Flynn’s legendary Robin?
All criticism aside, I must draw an arrow from my own quiver, and take aim at Robin Hood to defend what honor it has for ye Lads and Lasses of Nottingham aka fair readers of Date Night with Keith and Lisa.
Robin Hood is told using the unfamiliar back-story of a familiar tale. The story begins with King Richard the Lionheart (Danny Houston), who is trekking home from his years on the Crusades, while his brother John (Oscar Isaac) is busy at the palace having a royal romp with a French maiden a la Jonathan Rhys Myers’ Henry VII The Tudors. His mother catches him in the act, which was all kinds of creepy and inapprops to me, and yanks off the covers to chastise him for bedding a Frenchwoman while a possible attack from France is imminent, The Frenchies are out to get poor little John, by using his childhood friend Godfrey (Mark Strong) to surprise the king in route. The guy is kind of a snake, and those of you familiar with Disney’s Robin Hood will see him as the squirmy green character. Lisa pointed out during the movie that she missed the cartoon snake. Me too.
Our hero, Robin Longstride, is introduced as an archer for the king, and his merry men are also meager mercenaries for Richard. When King Richard gets an arrow to the neck, Sir Robert Loxley (Douglas Hodge) also dies while delivering Richard’s body to the sea for transport home to England. For those of you who are scratching your heads, saying “Isn’t Robin Hood also known as Robin of Loxley sometimes?” like me, just wait. Robin decides to take on the moniker of Sir Robert Loxley to finish the journey and inherit knighthood in the process, which is robbing from the dead and not giving to anybody. Isn’t this kind of against Robin Hood’s mantra? It’s an oversight made by screenwriter Brian Helgeland (More on him later).
Meanwhile, we are introduced to fair Maid Marion, played by Cate Blanchett, who is… old. Yeah, old and kind of homely with a busted red weave in an icky shade of red that Lisa did not care for. Wasn’t Maid Marion hot before? And young? Even as a cartoon, she was bubbly, pretty, and, forgive the pun, foxy. Instead, Cate plays Marion as an ancestral version of her Oscar winning portrayal of Katherine Hepburn, all hardscrabble, brash and brimming with earthy spitfire. This kind of puts a damper on the swashbuckling romance aspect of the Robin Hood story. But Cate never disappoints, and her heroic version of Maid Marion is a driving force in the film.
Her land of Nottingham (aha! That’s familiar) is being pillaged by a group of young goons who are stealing their grain. These kids are a little too young to be much of a threat in my opinion. They look like the lost boys or something out of Lord of the Flies. But Nottingham has bigger issues now that John is king. John must make up for the debt caused by Richard’s crusading; he decides to tax the peasantry of England and sends his men out to pillage the countryside.
As Robin arrives in Nottingham, he and the merry dudes meet Friar Tuck, who is played in the balding, jolly manner we are accustomed to by Mark Addy. He points Robin in the direction of the Loxley home so he may deliver the bad news to Marion and Loxley’s father. Side note: Marion and Robert Loxley were married. Whaaaa?
Here, Robin bids a quick adieu to his men. This is the point in the movie in which I realized that Russell Crowe’s Robin is severely lacking in the boyish charm and gravitas that has kept the legend alive. Russell and his men have no chemistry. Crowe is too middle aged for the middle ages, and doesn’t have the cocky swagger of Robin Hoods past.
As for the merry dude bros, they begin to play while Robin is away. This brief scene is the only trace of the rollicking rebellion we are used to seeing from this band of outsiders in previous Robin Hoods in the entire film. Rowdy, somewhat modern sounding music plays while the men make plays for the ladies. However, the morning after, Helgeland takes the fun a bit too far when Robin introduces Marion as his wife. One of the guys says “well played Robin.” Well played? Really? Isn’t that verbiage a little too 2010 to have been used by folks in that time? This is too anachronistic for this time period (Lisa was really impressed when I used this word- it means “not appropriate for the time period”).
While this fraternizing is going on, William Marshal (William Hurt), who was fired by King John earlier in the movie, gets word of King Phillip of France’s plans to invade. This is potentially deadly for a nation racked with unrest from the king’s taxation and tour of destruction. The barons of England decide to join together to dethrone the king. King John arrives in an attempt to change their mind, but it is Robin Hood that unites them against the threat of the French. King John ends up promising to honor individual liberties in a Magna Carta like doctrine, which wasn’t signed until 1215 AD. The movie takes place in 1199 AD, so yeah, not cool Ridley.
The film’s climax is the ending battle of the French vs. England. Here, as with all the battle scenes in the movie, Scott’s direction shines and the action is indeed thrilling. We are rooting for our hero Robin to defend England and take down the enemy. The battle is on the shore of England, which makes for a terrific “beaches of Normandy” style melee. The glorious battle scenes reminded me that this is indeed the same director that made Kingdom of Heaven, another flawed period piece.
In the end, Robin Hood makes for good but not great summer popcorn fluff. I applaud Scott’s attempt to bring originality to the story, but certain areas, such as the somewhat murky French subplot, and toying with the Robin and Marion romance, make it hard to love this version of Robin Hood. We don’t have much to root for, due to Crowe’s blasé version of Robin. Crowe appears to be resting on his laurels, and never quite captures the spirit of the legend. In terms of date night appropriateness, the film does not have much to offer for either lads or lasses, and the love story element is shown as a reluctant addition, rather than adventurous and thrilling. I would give the film a B -. It’s not as terrible as you may have read, but it doesn’t live up to the hype either. I would wait to Netflix this one for a rainy summer Sunday.
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