Review: ROBIN HOOD

I saw the new iteration of Robin Hood at the on Monday night. I was less than impressed. Here's an extract of the review I wrote for Arts Hub:

'Unfortunately for audiences, there is little to recommend in this latest version of Robin Hood. As with the trend in comic books to render once glittering, larger-than-life icons like Batman and Superman into gritty and angst-ridden contemporary characters, in making this account of the outlaw’s life ‘realistic’, the filmmakers have lost the original sparkle and romance of the legend.

The story sags under a barrage of unnecessary details, such as Robin’s discovery that his late father was responsible for drafting the Magna Carta (anyone with an eye for historical accuracy will be grinding their teeth in frustration by the final moments of the film’s 140-minute running time) and the hodge-potch of politics, revisionism and family angst considerably impacts on the pacing, with the film really only finding its feet in the film’s third and final act.

The numerous battle scenes, while dramatically shot, are overly reliant on clichés such as ‘arrow-cam’; the many characters are so thinly drawn as to be mere ciphers; and lazy storytelling abounds.

The production design is strong but inconsistent – sets are liberally decorated with random ruins and standing stones in order to establish an ‘olde worlde’ atmosphere, and a rustic musical sequence halfway through the film is truly jarring – while none of the performances (save for John Hurt as William Marshall, a nobleman loyal to the throne, though not necessarily the man who sits in it) are especially memorable. The chemistry between Crowe and Blanchett is particularly poor, while their burgeoning relationship is sketched out in the most perfunctory of details.

A sober, serious and ploddingly earnest re-telling of the legendary English hero, Robin Hood is neither memorable nor especially original. Like other films seeking to explore the historical ‘truth’ behind a legend, such as Antoine Fuqua’s woeful King Arthur and Wolfgang Petersen’s equally laboured Troy (both released in 2004), in removing any sense of wonder from the story, Scott and Helgeland have drained it of any magic.'

Give me Errol Flynn any day.