REVIEW: Robin Hood

I was about ready to write a passively antagonistic review, all about how this Robin Hood is kinda OK, but lacking in any kind of discernible magic or sense of fun. Gritty and grimy is OK, but not for a movie otherwise as dopey and unappetizing as this. The shit could have at least been a 2 hour 27 minute ride, but instead its just Gladiator meets Sherwood Forest, with all the intrigue, excitement and pathos of that movie taken away. Leaving anything that's just middling.

At least that's what I was going to say, before I had the misfortune of discovering that this Robin Hood cost 225 million dollars. Now there is and for certain will be more expensive movies, but at least they have the decency to put that money up on the screen. Robin Hood doesn't look fraction of that, and given that this is a movie with a budget only 60 million behind Avatar, shit really should have looked better then this. I guess its a minor complaint in the context of the movie, but in the context of sanity, it seems like a big deal, no?

No? Well How about this the. The grave, self-worth that Robin Hood constantly bestows on itself, as if wanted to be a movie legitimately worth thinking about and listening to, just doesn't justify when compared to the finished product, a half-baked, kind of dull action movie saved by a cast it doesn't deserve and perhaps the ultimate director for hire, Ridley Scott. But even he looks a little Lost here, with styles looking a little too familiar and, to put it simply, tired. This movie looks like it was made by a man whose soul is not really in it, and this rings a little too broadly of the great director of late. The battle scenes in particular were just boring, free of any vibrancy or viscera. Or an encyclopedia of the letter V, possessed by only Joey and me. Crowe, who as people have said, is a little too old and out of shape for the role, is entirely charmless. As he always has been really. What he does bring though, is the same quiet intensity that made him such a big deal in the first place. He's on autopilot, sure, but it passes. Blanchett does her English Scarlet O hara thing, even though she's Australian, and is good but has played this role before in more engaging films then this one. Agora's Oscar Isaac is pretty much ridiculous as Prince John and Mark Strong, in what must be his 6th villain of the year already, is for better or worse the same as he always is. Occasionally forgettable, occasionally cutting and deadpan.

This Robin Hood passes the time, but for who and what was involved, it's a smug, clunky misfire of portentousness. Yeah. It seems ridiculous that a movie making 100 million can be considered a flop, but that's surely what will happen. And since Robin Hood is such a thoroughly unenjoyable experience by design, even people who like it won't want to see it again. Man this looks to be a depressing summer.

Rating: 5/10