{"id":8430,"date":"2010-05-12T20:42:37","date_gmt":"2010-05-12T19:42:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=8430"},"modified":"2010-05-12T21:55:34","modified_gmt":"2010-05-12T20:55:34","slug":"robin-hood-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2010\/05\/12\/robin-hood-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Robin Hood"},"content":{"rendered":"
One of England’s most famous folk heroes<\/a> gets the big screen treatment with Ridley Scott<\/a> and Russell Crowe<\/a> reuniting for a grittier, historical take on the legend.<\/p>\n Set in the 12th century, Robin Hood<\/a><\/strong> sees an archer named Robin Longstride (Crowe) returning to England from the\u00a0Crusades<\/a> with a small band of followers, after King Richard the Lionheart (Danny Huston) has been killed in battle.<\/p>\n After a chance encounter with a fallen knight named Sir Robin Locksley, Robin returns to Nottingham and discovers the oppression of the villagers by the Sheriff of Nottingham (Matthew Macfadyen) and the danger posed to the newly crowned King John (Oscar Isaac) from a suspiciously bi-lingual\u00a0nobleman (Mark Strong).<\/p>\n Strikingly different from previous feature films about Robin Hood (The Adventures of Robin Hood<\/a>, Prince of Thieves<\/a>), this has a wider political scope, is more embedded in the historical intrigue of the time and has a lavish attention to period detail, even if historians will have a field day picking out inconsistencies and inaccuracies.<\/p>\n This an origin story whose antecedents are not previous versions of the myth, but rather Scott’s own historical epics: Gladiator<\/a> (2000) and Kingdom of Heaven<\/a> (2005).<\/p>\n The presence of Crowe as a solider who goes rogue has obvious echoes of his turn as Maximus Decimus Meridius<\/a>, whilst the depiction of the Crusades and medieval warfare also touches upon an area Scott has visited before<\/a>.<\/p>\n As you might expect from a Scott production, the technical contributions are generally excellent: the period detail includes some remarkable blending of English locations, built sets and CGI; whilst the editing (Pietro Scalia<\/a>) and cinematography (John Mathieson<\/a>) give a real kick to the set-piece sequences.<\/p>\n Crowe and Blanchett have undeniable screen charisma, even if their characters don’t really come alive as other Robin and Marians have done (notably Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn in Richard Lester’s 1976 film<\/a>) and some of the villains are disappointingly one-dimensional, with Strong and Isaac given particularly wafer-thin roles.<\/p>\n Audiences might be surprised how little there is here of the familiar Robin Hood template involving a maverick folk hero robbing from the rich to give to the poor.<\/p>\n Given the current economic times, when a proposed new tax on banks is even named after him<\/a>, this Robin Hood doesn’t really do that much wealth redistribution, which must rank as a missed cultural opportunity.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
<\/a>When Robin assumes the identity of Locksley, he meets the knight’s father, Sir Walter (Max von Sydow) and his widow, Lady Marion (Cate Blanchett). Gradually he gets caught up in the intrigue of John’s court, the possibility of a French invasion and a society where the poor are taxed heavily to fund foreign wars.<\/p>\n