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DVD (5)
We never even get to see Robin steal from the rich and give to the poor. That's because the film is a prequel in search of a sequel. With any luck, we won't get one.
The film is pretty, and there are a few solid moments every hour. But considered as a work of cinema, with paid professionals involved, it's an extremely lackluster story.
Yes, it's dour, but it's also gritty and not nearly as silly as most "Robin Hood" adaptations.
"And so the legend begins," the new movie tells us at the end. But it's too late.
Robin and Marian are played by a scowling Russell Crowe and a grim Cate Blanchett, who has the face of a wooden squaw stained by decades of cigar smoke. I can't remember a more un-fun-looking couple.
As in so many summer behemoths, the real stars are the projectiles-in this case, arrows with their own point-of-view shots, zipping through the air and finding their targets with pinpoint accuracy.
A solid change of pace for those seeking something a bit more substantial amid the sound-and-fury norm.
Ridley Scott brings his usual keen cinematic eye and pain-staking attention to period detail to Robin Hood, bringing an uninspired script to life without a grander purpose than to just exist as a typical Summer movie.
I don't know if anyone can better direct the kind of swords-and-horses action on display here.
Robin Hood looks great, with the sort of well-executed mise-en-scène we've come to expect from Scott, but it's a lot of sound and thunder that amounts to nothing.
If you don't want a chillier, wetter Gladiator then why are you even thinking of buying a ticket?
There's so much stuff crammed in here that the filmmakers forget to tell a truly engaging story.
Good but not great. The meatier story always follows the introduction, right?
It's a blah story with roots in neither history nor popular myth, and it doesn't set up Robin Hood as someone we'd care to follow after this story is told.
Scott's adaptation ... [is] about separating the legend from the man; it's about bringing Robin of the Hood out of the stratosphere of adulation and presenting him as a regular, human man.
I'm thinking the title of the movie should be Ridley Scott's Robin Hood - How to make the English hate the French again.
With its cast of thousands and impressive sets, Robin Hood looks great but this is not the gritty re-imagining of the Merry Men that many had hoped for - in fact, it hardly even counts as a Robin Hood film.
No matter how much deleted footage you restore, unrated scenes you add back in, and recutting Ridley Scott does, you cannot make this Robin Hood a good film.
The Robin Hood we get from Scott and Crowe is neither rollicking fun nor clever re-imagining.
full review at Movies for the Masses
Audience rousing cinema of this size and class does not come along often. A titillating conclusion leaves open the possibility of a sequel, and if Robin Hood is anything to go by, then more than merrier.
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