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 In cinemas now [M]
Director: Ridley Scott
Runtime: Endless
When you’re Robin Hood, your agenda is pretty clear – you rob from the rich and give to the poor. On an off day, you might rob from the somewhat well-to-do and give to the moderately disenfranchised, sure, but even then, you’re still the dashing outlaw everyone knows and loves. This is true, however, unless you are Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, in which case, you’re so busy skulking about the countryside making a Russell Crowe face and trying to turn hideous lines of dialogue like ‘rise and rise again until lambs become lions’ into catchphrases that you just have no time to rob, or even create a half-hearted ponzi scheme involving gullible retirees.
Scott’s latest blockbuster is that most overwrought of movie genres, the origin story. Rather than present us with the hero we all know and love (or at least tolerate), it draws on the deservedly-untold back story of how Robin Hood lectured some angry mobs about taxation, overcame his lingering daddy issues and, in his triumphant moment, emerged from the water making a Russell Crowe face so epic it stopped an invading French army in its tracks. Actually, I’ve made the film sound a lot more entertaining than it really is – the bit with the army of invading Frenchmen is pretty neat, an epic and beautifully-staged battle scene, but the two and a half hours or so leading up to it are a grim endurance test of, well, Ridley Scott-like proportions.
Admittedly, the cast are all pretty top notch – Oscar Isaac and Mark Strong ham it up as King John and his evil emissary, and Cate Blanchett, who couldn’t give a bad performance if her life depended on it, makes for a tough but willowy Marion. The cinematography is gorgeous, the period detail lavish, and the film has that really expensive sheen that will look absolutely great on Blu-ray. One of the big problems is the casting of Russell Crowe as Robin Hood – grizzled and pushing fifty where the character should be spry and youthful, the only way you can picture him running from the Sheriff of Nottingham is if there’s a meat pie at the other end. You’ll notice I haven’t mentioned the story yet, but that’s because there really isn’t one. There’s that stuff about taxation, a fair bit of singing, and the big finish involving Russell Crowe emerging from the water going ‘arrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh!’, but that’s about it. In the hey nonny-nonny parlance of its times, Robin Hood is an ill-begotten clusterfucke of bewylderinge size.
**
ALASDAIR DUNCAN
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