Robin Hood, or as I like to call it, Robin Hood Sucks

It’s taken me a few days to sit back, relax a bit and write out this Robin Hood review. Initially, when I saw it with my brother on Thursday night at a sneak preview, I was pleasantly surprised by the film. It wasn’t anything great but I had a fun time in the theater, even though we had a guy who kept repeating the places where the film took place. The guy also got on his cellphone multiple times and didn’t trust ‘that motha fucka Lil’ John.’ Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Okaaaaaaaaaay! Ugh, finally the guy left due to my brother making fun of him by doing his exact voice but saying even dumber things, such as ‘Yo, I didn’t know the Titanic sank. Shit!’ and ‘Yo, I’m an annoying asshole. Shit!’

But I’m pushing away from the review of Robin Hood. After seeing it, on the train ride home I came to a conclusion. I liked it. But when I was walking home, I was just thinking about every flaw the film had (and there are plenty) and forgot entirely about what I actually liked about the film (which wasn’t actually that much when looking in hindsight). The more I thought about it, the more I actually started to not like it. Then even more so, loathe it. Which is a strange turn of events for a few days worth of thinking it over, talking with other people about it and coming the simple conclusion about this film.

Which is that it sucks a royal Magna Carta sized big one.

To be perfectly blunt, it is one big cocktease of a movie, where we never see the Robin Hood we all know and love but instead is more a political film, dealing with land disputes and the French trying to take over England due to a corrupt Englishman played by Mark Strong (in villain role number 272) and for some reason, he hates Robin with a passion. I mean, he does shoot an arrow at his mouth, which gives him a villainous scar on his face, but chicks dig the scar. But there’s no way he knew who shot the arrow that scarred him. It’s just a script, by Brian Helgeland (who I like by the way… Payback is a wonderful remake of Point Blank), that is so lazy and has characters you really don’t give two shits about. Well, I’ll sidestep that comment and say the only people I truly cared about were Robin’s ‘Merry Men’, who do not get enough screentime whatsoever. When we see their merriment on screen, and the fun they are having as a trio, well, that reminds me of a Robin Hood movie. Kevin Durand is especially great as Little John, but he does with a small role and makes sure to steal every scene that he’s in.

But how could a film with such a stellar cast (hell, we even have Danny Huston as King Richard, delegated to a big red beard and a few minutes of screentime,  andnd Max Von Sydow who is a blind man whose son has been murdered, a trusted knight of the king). We also have a horrible romance between Cate Blanchett and Russell Crowe, which feels severely tacked on, which is funny considering it’s Maid Marion and Robin Fucking Hood. But there’s no tension, no love, nothing at all. Instead some really pushed upon comedic scenes between the two, who have to pretend to be married in order to keep the land. It sounds like a wacky 80′s comedy, but no folks, it’s a 2010 Ridley Scott $237 million dollar blockbuster summer film.

*shakes head*

I just don’t know what went wrong. When the film was originally called Nottingham, we had a more interesting take on the mythos of Robin Hood. In that script, the Sheriff of Nottingham was in fact the good guy, who was also Robin Hood, and a duality of the characters made for a really different take on the usual Robin Hood we all know. But supposedly Ridley Scott hated it (even though he had signed on when that script was the one that was optioned) and got a new, less exciting, less intriguing and very mundance script that seriously makes you yearn for the mullets of Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Yes, I went there.

Speaking of the Sheriff of Nottingham, he’s in the film for all of 5 minutes. And guess what? No tension whatsoever between anyone. A little forced tension between him and Maid Marion but that’s about it. It isn’t until the final scene we get a little Robin Hood hint, with an arrow through a wanted sign for the rogue himself. There’s another scene earlier too, where we get Robin Hood and his Merry Men, being helped by Friar Tuck (who in this film, has to keep mentioning that he’s Friar Tuck, just in case you in the audience don’t know who he is. Or what a Friar is. Or better still, what a Tuck is).

Sheesh, writing about this film is just making me even more angry about it. It’s like Ridley Scott closed his eyes, took some of the deleted scenes from both Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven, and just made Robin Hood with it. I think he wants the world to know and love the Crusades, being this is the second time he’s used the subject matter. I’m just still in awe at how bad this film was. It’s just an utter disappointment of a film, one that makes you sit back and wonder how you’ll make those 2 hours and 15 minutes back of your life that you wasted. But you can’t make them back up. Instead, you can be like me and write a scathing review about the film that Mr. Scott will never read and just wonder how you could get him to read it and maybe stay off of films for a little while. It’s a weird world where I’ve been preferring his little brother Tony Scott’s films above and beyond his own. It’s a Bizarro world, if I’ve ever known one.

One last thought… don’t bother seeing this film in theaters. If you are interested, wait until the DVD/Blu-Ray release, when it will be a director’s cut and will probably have tons of historical extras. Maybe a director’s cut will somehow put in scenes that will make the film enjoyable. But I doubt that.

Again, if you skipped to the bottom of this review to know what I thought about this film, I have a few short words to let you all know. This movie sucks and does not deserve your money at all.