Robin Hood

Robin Hood

Birth of a legend. Following King Richard's death in France, archer Robin Longstride, along with Will Scarlett, Alan-a-Dale and Little John, returns to England. They encounter the dying Robert of Locksley, whose party was ambushed by treacherous Godfrey, who hopes to facilitate a French invasion of England. Robin promises the dying knight he will return his sword to his father Walter in Nottingham. Here Walter encourages him to impersonate the dead man to prevent his land being confiscated by the crown, and he finds himself with Marian, a ready-made wife. Hoping to stir baronial opposition to weak King John and allow an easy French take-over, Godfrey worms his way into the king's service as Earl Marshal of England and brutally invades towns under the pretext of collecting Royal taxes.

The Review

For me usually I do not have to watch a film too many times. A lot of the times I watch a movie maybe twice at the most, but the movie is imprinted in my mind, and therefore makes it less enjoyable if I watch it again. This movie had me scratching my head for ages, as I could not remember too much about it the movie after a few days of watching it. Though I thought the movie paced along quote well. Had some good action scenes and a score similar to Gladiator, I knew to expect that as it was a Ridley Scott film. After the story of the French trying to invade and conquer England, there was not too much substance.

I appreciate that this was one take on the story of how Robin Hood came to be, the beginning of the legend, but this movie did not feel like a movie that would be remembered in legends in the future. To be honest, I feel that the movie fairs poorly with Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, that movie really brought the love of Robin Hood back into the mainstream. In this movie, characters such as The Sheriff of Nottingham were so minor that it was a waste having him in the movie. I watched an interview with Russell Crowe and he wants their to be a sequel which would pick up from the end of this movie, which is really roughly this movie should have started. At the end of the day, if you removed the name Robin Hood and named this movie The Archer, perhaps that would have done better.

The original idea, and one that I thought sounded very creative was to name the movie Nottingham, and have the Sheriff as the central figure and more sympathetic figure, while Robin Hood was more the villain. I think that this would have been a fantastic take on a the film and given an edge the others had not had. In the end the movie was rewritten even in production.

I guess the defining moments would be when King Richard is looking for his 'honest Englishman' and encounters Robin and Little John fighting. Despite the fight being caused by Little John, Robin takes the blame, and in doing so earns the right to express his very frank view of the war to the king. The King agrees about finding his honest naive Englishman and has them both put into blocks. This was the attempt to create empathy with the character.

Again, something that was stressed in earlier posts, in this movie there is very little connection made with the characters so it is hard to care for them. It makes the film difficult to be either interesting or in this case memorable. I feel the movie started to early in the timeline of events. Think Star Wars, much of the original history was revealed in the graphic writing at the start of the movie. The rest picks straight up from there. There could have been some similar text, and perhaps start with Robin attempting to reunite England and then becoming an Outlaw, hence why he was on the run.

I just wish I could have seen Nottingham

I think this movie just scrapes in at 3/5 as it is watchable but not something you will remember down the line.