Halfway through this historical epic I had to check I was in the right screening room is this Robin Hood or Hamlet? Three quarters of the way through I started wondering why there are virtually no English actors in a quintessentially English story. By the end I just wanted to go home give me Errol Flynn any day, even Kevin Costner was more fun than this.
Ridley Scotts re-imagining of the English folk hero spends so much time trying to avoid the clichés the green tights, the merry men it ends up more cliché-bound than many of its predecessors, but a whole lot less fun. Crowes Robin Longstride is a brooding, mumbling, internalising hero, an archer for the king who is double-crossed on his promises and so tries to fight for the common man. Good for him, but is this film a political treatise or an action adventure? In the end it is neither, and the result is an overlong, talky story with a big fight scene tacked on at the end.
It all starts so promisingly, with King Richard working his way back through France to England and deciding to ransack one last castle. He does, with the help of his honest archer Robin, who then tells the king he has lost the side of good on his crusades. When the king gets one in the neck, Robin, disguised as a knight, returns the crown to England, where it is taken up by John (Oscar Isaac), who has power in his sights and a French lady in his bed, much to everyones horror. A beautiful French girl when you could marry a dowdy Englishwoman? What is he thinking?
Robin meanwhile returns the fallen Sir Robert Loxleys sword to his father Walter (von Sydow) and gets pally with him, much to the chagrin of his daughter Marion (Blanchett). All that pales though with the rumours that France is set to invade, aided by their double agent Godfrey (Mark Strong). It all ends with a bloody battle on the beach at Dover, which is staged like a medieval Saving Private Ryan.
Crowe can be a fine actor, but here seems uncertain how to play Robin is he a mere commoner with a noble heart, or a great leader? Theres certainly no humour he and Scott made the unfunniest comedy ever, A Good Year, a few years ago, which is proof of that. Theres also not much spark between him and Marion, and Blanchett overdoes the pouting and simpering way too much.
It all would have been fine with a few set pieces to liven things up, but there are far too many scenes in interiors of castles or rooms, most of which the great Eileen Atkins steals anyway. Strong does his usual bad guy routine, and at least he talks in an English accent, which is more than can be said for von Sydow, Hurt, Huston and, lets say it at least once, Crowe himself. The Kiwis voice travels between Glasgow, Birmingham, Somerset and Cornwall via Swansea, and in none of them does he really convince.
Apparently the original script had the Sheriff of Nottingham as a conflicted man and Robin as more of an outlaw, but after extensive redrafting we end up with a mess, and almost no sheriff Matthew Macfadyen has one line, which he ruins with the only moment the film drifts into camp. At least Kevin Costner had Alan Rickman to play against here the bad guy is King John, who has at least one good line. It all could have been so much more interesting, but its caught between several different movies.
Scott and Crowe have a variable track record together, but one thing is for sure, Gladiator now seems like a long time ago, and the magic of that film is not going to be replicated easily. It isnt here, and the film finishes with the ominous words the legend begins, presumably meaning were to get a flood of sequels. Wheres that dagger they are all threatening each other with?
Overall Verdict: Sloppy, overlong, uneven story that is neither a satisfying action adventure nor a deeper look at a myth. Disappointing all round.
Reviewer: Mike Martin