An unwavering melding of substance and style, Robin Hood is colorless through and
through. Ridley Scott’s retelling of the famed archer’s legend is (groan) an
origin story that, on the basis of its conclusion, seems designed to kick-start
a franchise, a repellent possibility in light of this saga’s wretched dullness.
Shot in flat grays and browns and perpetually encased in shadows, Scott’s film may
be his most visually unattractive yet, although if his drab aesthetic drains all
life from the frame, it’s nonetheless in keeping with his enervating narrative.
With only a day’s worth of rewrites, all traces of Robin Hood could have been
erased from this story. Still, even as is, the director’s latest is little more
than a generic medieval actioner, one that not only seems to utilize the costumes
and sets of his Kingdom of Heaven,
but also employs that predecessor’s helter-skelter combat photography to
muddled effect. That said, no cinematographic panache could salvage Brian
Helgeland’s graceless script, which charts Robin (Russell Crowe) as he abandons
the army of King Richard The Lionhearted (Danny Huston) over the monarch’s
cruel Crusades treatment of Arabs (skimpy contemporary political subtext!), and
then travels to Nottingham to return the sword of a fallen comrade whom he
chooses to impersonate, a ruse that leads him to the home, and soon the heart,
of icy proto-feminist Marion Loxley (Cate Blanchett).
Robin’s sole characteristic is noble selflessness, which he
learns – after recovering repressed memories with the help of Max von Sydow’s
blind sage-cum-psychiatrist – were passed down from his activist father. Like
everything else about this standard-issue slog, however, Scott can’t be
bothered to flesh out this key thematic angle. Royal court intrigue also
abounds, most of it involving newly crowned King John (Oscar Isaac) and his
traitorous right-hand man Godfrey (Mark Strong), who’s in league with the
French to stage a coup, and whose villainy is visualized via a facial scar. Alas,
there’s nothing actually intriguing about this material, sluggishly conceived
and purposeless as it is. Robin Hood
unimaginatively mimics Braveheart’s
basic template – hero fights the ruling power in service of affording all men
socialist liberty – and then, during its finale, attempts to replicate Saving Private Ryan’s Normandy Beach
sequence, a climax that’s all blurry, incoherent images of stampeding horse
hooves and clanging weapons. At every turn, Crowe and Blanchett fail to add
nuance to cardboard cutout roles, while Scott, going in the polar-opposite
direction of Errol Flynn or Kevin Costner’s 1991 Prince of Thieves, avoids any sense of dashing heroism or lively
flair, opting instead for a gritty realism that’s proven insincere by his lusty
fondness for clichés. Monotonous, meandering, and suspense-free, it’s a
mega-budgeted period piece that’s epic only in its waste of talent and
resources.
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