Robin Hood (2010)
Who does not know him, those daring heroes in tights, always with a bow and arrow is a leader, a cheeky slogan on the lips, darling of the downtrodden and the women? And who entertains at least not in secret sympathy for his struggle against injustice and exploitation?
Robin Hood is one addition to the Dracula probably most often filmed hero material. Like the less sympathetic bloodsucker from Transylvania tend the facts behind the modern myth of zero. No matter : whether in silent film versions or Mel-Brooks-adaptations, whether played by Errol Flynn or Kevin Costner – Robin Hood takes forever! Finally, his name alone is known worldwide.
O God! This French …!
The rubbing of the Third Crusade army of King Richard the Lionheart (Danny Huston) is on the way back from the not so mysterious Orient. The tasks that are expected to house the rulers violently, groaning under the oppressive but the people taxes. Just a few days away from home overtaken the brave king an inexorable fate, wounded at the storming of a French castle him mortally an arrow.
On winding roads it is now at the archer Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe), both the Crown and the Sword of the underhanded murdered nobleman Sir Robert Loxley (Douglas Hodge) to repatriate. The impeccable Robin takes up the challenge and delivers first Eleanor of Aquitaine (Eileen Atkins), mother of the fallen king, the crown. Traditionally, they crowned their only surviving son, John (Oscar Isaac) as the new ruler of what should prove to be fatal. For this first official act appoints Godfrey (Mark Strong) as the new treasurer. What the King did not know : Godfrey previously ended a pact with the French king Philip, who is planning an invasion of the British Isles.
Meanwhile, Robin and his friends break Little John (Kevin Durand), to Will Scarlett (Scott Grimes) and Allan A’Dayle (Alan Doyle) to Nottingham to Sir Loxleys sword his father in Nottingham to deliver. Once there are separate for now the ways of friends. For the aged Sir Walter Loxley (Max von Sydow) Robin surprised with the offer to take the place of his fallen son. After some hesitation, accepts Robin and suddenly finds himself in the role of the husband of Lady Marion Loxley (Cate Blanchett).
Time for romance or a breather is the two are not. Because of the insidious plan Godfrey bears fruit : during a French invasion army lands on the English south coast, want to get up many noblemen and their subjects against the tyrannical dictates of the king. Britain threatens to sink into a civil war and afterwards easy victim of the French to be. Only Robin Hood can still save the kingdom …
As it pulls off his tights
Almost countless adaptations of the myth pave the way towards the highly anticipated Ridley Scott version. Errol Flynn’s legendary that this presentation with a charming underdog against the mighty crown would have to do any more than Kevin Costner’s soft-romantic jelly. Instead, he laid in advance like to point out that this would be a very different picture from the usual version. To anticipate: This claim he succeeds admirably. Whether this is the finished film, however, benefit more than harm, is probably a matter of opinion.
For Scott away so far from the Robin Hood myth, that the adventure strips sometimes even as a distancing effect. Clearly, this is already set on the time frame of the events : where conventional films about the Greenfinch and his Merry Men begin, ending Scott’s “Robin Hood”. Thus, understands his version as a background, which makes for an ambiguous result.
On a positive note the move away from the sufficiently known, customary patterns of myth. Here, hidden Robin Hood not do that with Littlejohn & Co in the forest to the Sheriff of Nottingham or the crown more easily to the life of those afflicted by serious and high taxes serfs. Instead, Scott is a noble warrior on the side of the crown. First, it restores the symbol of power by the ruler to the court and later by the French invaders fought most effectively. Even if the film otherwise can relate anything positive, it must be admitted that the change in perspective is refreshingly new and a simple copy of the recipe for success – popular Feschak in a green leisure suit, pretty young actress as helpless Maid Marion, nasty sheriff, etc. – refuses to complete. Dark and dirty was not a “Robin Hood” movie before.
The big “but” follows logically from this same rejection. For with the sympathetic anarchists in the service of the exploited has just this version apart from a few names virtually nothing in common. This Robin Hood is rather in the tradition of the hero of another Ridley Scott production, that of Maximus in “Gladiator”. Terrible events of traumatized and war-weary grows beyond a warrior and creates the seemingly impossible: He defeated the powerful enemy,not coincidentally, it is also good in the real rough life Russell Crowe, who embodies the role. For now the fifth time, Crowe was in a Ridley Scott film, before the camera and offers an impressive performance as always. True : almost everything that shaped the popular culture from the vague to the myth of a noble warrior shining example for the oppressed, is thrown on the rubbish heap of history. Only at the very end of the film met the audience that Robin Hood, whom he knows and loves.
Effect kingdom, but staged without any tension
From a technical point of view, there is a Ridley Scott film, as usual, little or nothing to complain. The effects of the 130 million dollar production reflect the state of the art, several times begrudge the government a large pan of the camera Titan on the beautiful English landscapes and realism flays powerful impression. Unlike a decade earlier in “Gladiator” rigid even the halls of power, here the king’s court, cold with dirt and architectural.
The acting performances are consistently at the highest level, with Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett deliver outstanding usual representations. And yet it lacks the film at a very essential element : the tension. As lavish and expensive to Reproduce the Middle Ages may be filmed, so emotional the atmosphere remains sterile during the approximately two and a half hour run length. For example, the social conventions defying Lady Marion, who turns out to be English Jeanne d’Arc, the death of her beloved husband gets tangled fairly quickly and without tears.
This would still get over to were it not for the problem of lack of antagonists. Rogue acts as a formal Godfrey, who eventually met but the usual conventions of a “bad guy”: He is cowardly acts, assaults, ambushes, on the weak and is not afraid to entrust to defenseless women and children to a painful death by fire. Charisma or menace he exudes so not out. He is just a nasty guy who literally gets to the success of corpses. The classic adversaries in the form of the Sheriff of Nottingham (played to a track covered with Matthew Macfadyen degenerates) unfortunately for minor supporting role.
Even Robins faithful men are more likely to be only negligible roles. Their characters are not further refined. Instead, they drink while you and be open to feminine charms, but more as a (useless) cues they are not.
Of course, Robin Hood is never seriously in danger, nor could be stone dead as James Bond at the end of a movie actually. Nevertheless, the script would have been sufficient space for all sorts of conflicts that are reluctant to viewers in the spell. But from the beginning, the roles are clearly identified and leave no doubt as to the further course of history.
It does not help Scott’s sprawling and ambitious : “Robin Hood” should obviously more than “just” be an exciting adventure movie. In addition to small skirmishes and major battles, which marched in double quick time to the Happy End, a plot is against the crown, as in how critical questions about the Crusades, political commentary, a mother-son conflict, feminism, and much more. For this purpose and a half hours with the best will not, so Scott has plenty of half-baked work and raises the question of which movie he actually staged : wanted a medieval “Gladiator”? This field has been Mel Gibson “Braveheart” plows. Admiration for a strong woman in a male dominated society? A battle record?
Finally, be Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood” back completely helpless. More than two hours of good entertainment just does not satisfy the demands that provide to the creator of “Alien”, “Blade Runner” or “Gladiator”. One can only hope that he remembers his old strengths and delivers what is expected of him : a film that clearly bears his signature and uncomfortable enough, is not just an attribute like “provided good entertainment” to be.
