Robin Hood review

So, I wanted to at least say a few words on Robin Hood to hold people over since I'll be out of town for the next week or so.

Robin Hood was a brilliantly filmed movie with great action set pieces, it also does a great job of depicting the Medieval times quite accurately. When Ridley Scott is at the helm, you know you're going to get a masterfully crafted movie. And that is certainly what we got here.

But it wasn't a great movie, not even close. A very unconvincing love story between Robin Hood and Marian that features zero attempt at courtship and ultimately feels 100% manufactured. Well, actually, it was. It was manufactured by Marian's father-in-law and Marian was soooo pissed. But why was she that pissed really? As we find out, her husband Robert Loxley married her then left for battle a week later. She barely had time to get to know her husband and then he was gone for TEN YEARS. But whatever, the problem here is that no matter how Robin and Marian act toward each other, you know that they will end up together so why not make it more fun? It was the most boring, contrived love story I've seen in awhile with absolutely zero emotion.

The overall story/plot of the movie didn't make a whole lot of sense. Once King Richard is killed, his brother John is then made king and he goes on a complete power trip. He later is betrayed by his right-hand man who manipulated King John and has been helping the French form an invasion against England. This makes John decide to be a good king all of a sudden. But once they win the battle, which is the most ridiculous, poorly-planned battle on the part of the French, King John is once again the "bad king" who turns Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) into an outlaw because... he actually fought in the battle the French surrendered to him, or something. I understand the need for there to be an established bad guy/villain in this movie so that there could be sequels, but this particular villain is just a little bitch. He's also a complete idiot, apparently. "This is my first battle lol, what do we do?"

I don't mean to hate on this movie, it's just a lot of the story and character motivations didn't make sense and the love story wasn't very convincing at all. Max von Sydow gives a great performance as Walter Loxley and Russell Crowe is his usual badass self as the title role. Although Cate Blanchett was surprisingly wooden in her role as Marian Loxley, but I don't know if it was really her fault. Then there's Mark Strong who plays the bad guy/traitor Godfrey and was also the bad guy in Sherlock Holmes. The problem with Mark Strong is that while he looks like a bad guy, he's such a one-note bad guy that there's really not much to his characters. Once you see him, you immediately know that he's going to be the bad guy and... that's just who he is. Everything else about him is completely forgettable.

On the whole, I could see this film being enjoyable to those not too familiar to the tale of Robin Hood or even people who are fans of Medieval-type movies and are just looking for a good ol' bloody Medieval action movie. And yeah, the action scenes are exquisitely made, but they're few and far between. The problem is that there is no basic logic in these action/battle scenes and they just make for a very easy victory for the good guys. Obviously, you want the good guys to win, but I'm telling you... it was like a professional team against high school kids. The French had no chance. But how could they screw it up that badly? Even before the battle started, Robin, Marshal, and King John were all in agreement that there were a shitload of Frenchmen. Why would they decide that landing on a beach near a cliff would be a good tactical idea? Then the leader of the French sees all the English soldiers on top of the cliff and is like "oh shit." But how do you not see that coming? Even if you were lead to believe that they were at war with each other, why would landing near a cliff ever be a good idea? This is not someone who is just pinpointing problems on the movie, it's just that it took away from the entertainment for me because there was essentially no struggle on the British side. And then the icing on the cake was when Robin Longstride strikes a bow right in the neck of Godfrey who is HUNDREDS of feet away from him. Ok, I guess that proves Robin is a pretty damn good shot, but I just felt like that was a bit much. Actually, the icing on the cake was probably Marian deciding to show up to the battle with a bunch of teenage kids riding on their horses. Why would you want to bring kids to a battle? Ah whatever.

So... no, I can't really recommend this movie. I can say there is plenty to like in this movie, but it doesn't quite deliver the punch that Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe were going for.

5/10