Behind every hero is a back story, a catalyst that drove him to fight the good fight and more often than not defend the weak from the tyranny of evil men. Ridley Scott’s latest epic Robin Hood goes some way to explaining how one of the most famous fictional heroes of all time came to be, and just why he had accent like Mick McCarthy.
Robin of Longstride (Russell Crowe) is a common archer in King Richard’s returning army from the Crusades in the early 12th Century. Disillusioned with war, he and a few of his not so merry men go AWOL and return to England. On the way, they stumble across a plot to kill the King and to turn England’s lords against the crown. With the sword of a fallen knight in his hand, Robin must return to Nottingham where he will face his past and become the legend that is Robin Hood.
Robin Hood aims to take a crack at giving a new slant to an well-told story much as Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jnr did. It tells the story behind the legend and creates a character played by Mr Popular himself Mark Strong (Lord Blackwood in Holmes and Godfrey in Robin Hood) that our hero must first defeat before he meets the true villain of the piece (Moriarty in Holmes and King John in Robin Hood). Sadly for Robin Hood, Crowe has neither the charisma or on-screen presence of Downey Jnr to carry a threadbare film that boasts a plot that should have been the opening twenty minutes of a proper Robin Hood film.
t’s a long story
Director Ridley Scott is no stranger to medieval films. Kingdom of Heaven told the story of the Crusades in all it’s drawn out glory (the film felt as long as the actual Crusades campaign itself). The problem with Robin Hood is that when you hold it up to his other work, it looks too restrained (not in running time sadly, as it still runs over two hours).
While Kingdom may have been long, it looked amazing. Robin Hood looks like it was shot by a first time director with a big name director over his shoulder. It is, in a word, a ‘safe’ movie. But when you consider that Crowe and Scott are trying to launch a series of Robin Hood movies (the signs are annoyingly there from the beginning) and break America (Costner’s Prince of Thieves was huge in the US) you can understand why they play it so safe.
The same can be said for the casting of all the major players. From Cate Blanchett as Maid Marian and Mark Strong as Godfrey (Mr Bad Guy in Kick Ass and Holmes) to Robin’s men (all of which you’ll recognise from US TV dramas). Each one plays their part by the numbers, save for Robin’s men who each attempt some ludicrously bad English accents. On the whole the casting screams of “keeping the U.S audiences happy†which I suppose is a given when you expect to throw a sequel at them in the near future. Which is probably why Crowe decided to dump his Yorkshire accent half way through the movie and go for his usual Antipodean growl.
Anyone with more than a passing interest in film will see Robin Hood for what it is, a by-the-numbers money spinner where neither lead nor director get out of first gear. Not the worst way to spend an evening but you could do better.
Andrew Kennedy
You can check out our interview with Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott here
