Robin Hood

Robin Hood_360P

source: Robin Hood

This is my first review for IMDb inspired by the long dissertation on how disappointing this Robin turned out to be. I, on the other hand believe that all the buggers did a fine & entertaining job. It certainly is no Citizen Kaine & if this Robin Hood does become a trilogy, I do not think it will fair as well as The Lord of the Rings trilogy. One can hope that this Robin Hood will only improve as did TLOTR. Time will tell... As stated, the movie was entertaining. As a prequel it set the story to come rather well. It did run a bit long but it is after all, a large tale. As anyone who has ever had a favorite book turned into a film knows, that film rendition is simply not going to have the nuance that one gets from reading a book at your on pace & with your own vision. So many are so disappointed by the lack of that nuance that they simply cant relax & enjoy the vision of a master director such as Ridley Scott. It is your loss if you go into this movie with unreasonable expectations that will keep you from enjoying this film. I give this movie a 7 of 10. There were, IMO a few CGI flaws & a few slow moments. If the tale continues I hope to see more development among the minor characters. A last thought, if this is the only segment of any proposed trilogy, then this movie is able stand alone.

Ridley and Tony Scott and I grew up watching the same sort of dual feature movie down the local flea pit - only his was in Hartlepool and mine was in Cardiff. There was a genre that was set in medieval or Arthurian England where a secondary leading US actor like Robert Taylor or Alan Ladd came across to Britain to lead up a cast of local thesps like Robert Morley or Guy Rolfe or Michael Rennie, which were fairly successful - the best by far being 'Ivanhoe' which had a gorgeous young Elizabeth Taylor being burnt at the stake! This 'Robin Hood' is an expensive remake. The reason, I say that, is that they always had some plot about the lead role finding out his father was some great liberal lord or peasant who fell out with the establishment! Unfortunately this film is top heavy with superfluous plot, and the real identity of Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) takes ages to come to fruition. Yes, Robin's father wrote the document before Magna Carta, being a sort of illiterate medieval version of Tom Paine and Thomas Jefferson - really!? The plot becomes so convoluted that Mark Strong is some sort of Benedict Arnold figure (got to make it comprehensible to US audiences), King John is a mad spoilt brat, and Marian a sword wielding warrior queen aka Xena (cue the joke when you first see her bending a long bow - a feat few men could achieve!), while the totally wasted Sheriff of Nottingham (Matthew McFadyean) takes the humorous relief award with the best line about his mother! A historical mish mash then with stock characters and plots from every source imaginable (plus plenty of slomo), eg the opening looks like a colour remake of 'Lord of the Flies!' and pre-final battle looks like Wendy leading the Lost Boys into action! The acting is okay, but mostly one note. The script soon to be seen in court with Steven Spielberg suing for plagiarism - would you believe that the French invaders come ashore in WW2 landing craft with scenes of dead bodies, arrows whizzing and blood shot underwater!? Knowing where the final battle was shot at Freshwater Bay, I shall be going to look soon for those CGI cliffs! And, by the end, if you are wondering how Robin becomes an outlaw, then don't blink, it all happens ludicrously in about 120 seconds flat! Four for brio and cheek and lots of action, but what a load of old blarney, sorry, horse manure!

thank you, ridley scott, for making a movie that doesn't try to be bigger,better and more expensive than last years summer hits. i'm really getting tired of the whole fx-overkill (i'm so not going to watch 'prince of persia'), so again thanks! everything in this movie just comes naturally. the action appears violent, without ever really showing any blood. the funny moments just happen and not in a ha-ha-audience-please-laugh-now way. and the story flows from beginning to end, without ever dragging. yes, some elements remain underdeveloped (those kids in the forest. the leader with the mask on? what's going on there? we don't know)and the final battle is won before it even starts, so, no real suspense there. but guys, it exactly that quality that makes the movie great. it leaves the audience wanting more, instead giving them an overdose of action, drama or humor. perfect! i wish there were more movies like this, but the likes of clash of the titans, prince of persia, avatar (!!)proove that 'to much' is apparently the way to go.. pity!

As an admirer of Ridley Scott's work - especially "Gladiator" but above all the totally outstanding "Kingdom of Heaven" - my wife and I went to see this in the cinema with some "good" expectations. Unfortunately, I couldn't wait for the whole farrago to come to a painful conclusion. The film is a total mess because its screenplay is simply horrendous. It has no proper "story" or structural narrative, the whole thing being like a quilt made up of different strands of so-called "story", which are then stitched together at odd times ["stiched-up" for the audience is a better description] in the forlorn hope that this will somehow make a "whole" thing emerge on the screen. The fault lies entirely with the scriptwriter, Brian Helgeland, for the most total rubbish screenplay I have ever seen - as well as with Ridley Scott for allowing himself to spend money and time filming this rubbish. Other commentators - especially "justin 55839": "A Disaster of a Movie" - have correctly picked up all the holes in the script and the film. This film really needs to be consigned to the rubbish bin. The only thing that kept me somehow half-interested was listening to the excellent soundtrack. Except there again, certain horrors of horror kept coming to the fore. I couldn't believe I was hearing 19th or 20th century Irish folk music as the background to the olde ye English folks people of the 12th century enjoying themselves around the village camp fires at night! Thank goodness the other two films of Scott's I mentioned above will help to keep his reputation intact.

First off, i want to say how refreshing it is for a big summer movie not to be on the band wagon of CGI or 3-D. At last a straight up movie not relying on any gimmicks! Robin Hood delivers what it promises. Solid action, good narrative, and the inclusion of a bit of history with action between England and France gives the movie an added meat and almost realistic feel to it. The dialogue is a bit ropey at times, and Robin's "merry men" could have had a bit more screen time, but otherwise i see no major fault with this movie. All in all a refreshing, exciting, fun, entertaining, nothing that you wouldn't expect from the pairing of Russel Crowe and Ridley Scott. 7/10

God almighty! This Robin Hood is catastrophic, period. On top of that, the lack of humbleness reaches the unthinkable. I've heard Russell Crowe , the new Robin Hood, referring to Errol Flynn's version as crap. Crap? Can you imagine! Errol Flynn made that movie "The Adventures Of Robin Hood" in 1939 and people still watch it today, 77 years later, with utter delight. Russell Crowe's "Robin Hood" was made only 7 years ago and it's already forgotten. I was appalled by his comment and realized that Oscar winner or not, wisdom or knowledge is not part of the equation. I've heard Russell Crowe in a different interview saying he never trained as an actor. He claims he doesn't know anything about Stanislavski and more importantly, he doesn't care to know. What a message to send to the new generations.

Forget everything you know about Robin Hood and his Merry Men of Sherwood Forest. Wipe away images of those Men In Tights robbing the rich and helping the poor, the pretty damsel Maid Marion, Little John and the dastardly Sheriff of Nottingham. The legend of Robin the Hood gets an overhaul by Ridley Scott and writer Brian Helgeland - and you can hardly recognise the bones of the legend until you get to the end of the movie. Like "The Dark Knight", "Iron Man" and others, this is another origin movie that sees director Scott teaming up again with Russell Crowe 10 years after Gladiator! Helgeland's tale deals with the adventures of Robin Longstride (Crowe), an archer in the Crusading army of Richard the Lionheart, long before he is known to all and sundry as Robin Hood. During a battle against the French, Robin learns of the 'death' of King Richard and sees it as an opportunity to flee from the army. On his way back to England, he chances upon the critically injured Sir Robert of Loxley (Douglas Hodge) and promises the dying knight that he will take a sword back to his father, Sir Walter Loxley (Max Von Sydow). At Sir Walter's home near Nottingham, Robin meets Robert's faithful widow Marion (Cate Blanchett) and accepts Sir Walter's proposal to masquerade as Robert, his 'prodigal son'. This means getting involved with the Loxleys' problems like over-taxation by the town's sheriff (Matthew Macfadyen) and helping to protect them from pillaging attacks by King John's emissary Godfrey (Mark Strong. Early reports about the script suggested that Robin Hood was supposed to be a villain and the Sheriff of Nottingham the hero. This proved to be false because Scott seeks to be faithful to English history in this re-imagining of the folklore (mostly told in ballads). Indeed, Scott spends a lot of time on the political intrigues of King John's (Oscar Isaac) court involving Godfrey, William Marshall (William Hurt) and the Queen, painting a realistic and vibrant portrait of 12th Century England. In fact some of the scenes remind me of the TV series, "The Tudors", which had a handful of the same co-stars and extras. And that beach landing sequence is definitely reminiscent of the World War Two landings at Normandy! Anyway, with Crowe and Blanchett in the lead, we can always expect powerful performances and rousing scenes of battles and romance. Even though Blanchett's Marion is no maiden, it is easy to root for her because she is as feisty as she is attractive and very handy with a bow and arrow. As for Crowe, it is easy to dismiss his performance as Gladiator Maximus in tights but that may not be accurate. What I would have wished for was for more humour than those provided by Mark Addy's Frair Tuck and Scott Grimes' Will Scarlet. Still, we can look forward to more adventures of the famous archer in the sequels. - By LIM CHANG MOH (limchangmoh.blogspot.com)