Robin Hood

Contrary to its commercial advertisement, Ridley Scott's take on the men in tights is not exactly the first great blockbuster of the summer. In fact, it isn't even great.

For those of you who are looking for Robin Hood to steal from the rich and give to the poor, I am sorry to say that there is none of that in Scott's version. In this contemporary spin on the classic legend, Robin Longstride is viciously manhandled out of the era of his classical tale and carelessly tossed into the early 13th century, the era of the Magna Carta, so that he can liberate his people from King John's tyranny.

There are so few good things in this film that I am going to start with them and then proceed to take this movie apart limb by limb.

Good points:

• This film is directed by Ridley Scott, the director of Gladiator, which won best picture in 2000.
• The film has great casting: Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett. This film would get an A in history class for being historically accurate with most of the material.
• The script is clever and funny in a lot of scenes.

Not-so-good points:

• This film is directed by Ridley Scott. So what? Scott is good at directing older-themed films but if Robin Hood was your first Ridley Scott film, I am sure you do not think so. Scott's direction is kind of all over the place in this movie and it can become difficult to follow along at times. I would have much rather seen Scott take on an Alien remake than this film.
• Next, this film stars Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett. Again, so what? Crowe tries too hard for an Italian accent that it totally covers up his natural English accent. Along with that, Crowe just feels out of place in this film and Cate Blanchett is just kind of there for a "dramatic" love interest for Crowe.
• For the first half of the film, the story brings us to so many different locations that there are subtitles giving us the name of where the characters are almost every twenty minutes.
• Ridley Scott and his crew have totally reshapen Robin Hood's ideology from a literal sense of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, to liberating the poor from the rich. And by the end of the film nothing changes; the poor stay poor and the rich stay rich.
• It is probably only possible to enjoy this film if you are a history buff.

As you can see, the cons far outweigh the pros of this film. Robin Hood is a disappointment, especially for those of us who are big fans of these filmmakers. However, I believe that at the heart of the Robin Hood tale there is an important lesson that needs to be passed down from generation to generation. It is just upsetting to see that our generation got stuck with this version.

Disregard this film.