Robin Hood: Critic Reviews

This latest rehash of Robin Hood is a prime example of what happens when big stars lose respect for the audience.

I'm all for a new take on an old story. But Scott and his screenwriter, Brian Helgeland, work so mightily to turn Robin 
 into a stolidly noble, pre-notorious version of himself that they forget to make him at all magical. Rousing. A hero of the gle

There is a whole lot of meanwhile in this crowded, lumbering film.

This is strong stuff.

Perhaps the worst, and most shameless, aspect of this tedious affair is that it's essentially a prequel for the Robin Hood better known for his redistribution of wealth.

The Robin Hood of myth and moviedom is for the most part AWOL. Why should we have to wait until the last five minutes to see Crowe crack a smile, let alone split an arrow?

It doesn't breathe new life into a genre as did Gladiator, Scott's first pairing with Russell Crowe, but it's a brawny reimagining of a beloved old myth, a period popcorn movie turned out with professionalism and gusto.

The directorial choices are, for the most part, so lazy, the blockbuster engineering so blatant, that Robin Hood often falls into self-parody.

The problem with Russell Crowe's new take on the legend is that it has one muddy boot in history and the other in fantasy. The middling result is far from a bull's-eye.

It's an ersatz epic about men in fights -- grim fights, grinding battles, clanking combats that are repetitive and, in a movie that runs 140 minutes, all but endless.

It's a resolutely grim and grubby lesson in 13th-century British history filtered through all the requisite trademarks of a summer blockbuster.

The action's here, there, and everywhere... but all this to-ing and fro-ing fails to advance the narrative with the compelling force you crave in movies.

Robin and Marian are played by a scowling Russell Crowe and a grim Cate Blanchett, who has the face of a wooden squaw stained by decades of cigar smoke. I can't remember a more un-fun-looking couple.

"And so the legend begins," the new movie tells us at the end. But it's too late.

Robin Hood is a high-tech and well made violent action picture using the name of Robin Hood for no better reason than that it's an established brand not protected by copyright.

I liked it. It's on a par with Scott's American Gangster: No revelations, but a satisfying, large-scale genre movie, toned up by its cast.

As in so many summer behemoths, the real stars are the projectiles-in this case, arrows with their own point-of-view shots, zipping through the air and finding their targets with pinpoint accuracy.

Robin Hood boasts graphic battle scenes and ingenious intrigue, a sense of history that may not be accurate but feels authentic, and a love story that smartly plays with gender and Hollywood stereotypes.

Scott's films are usually high on technical polish but iffy in terms of emotional engagement. This one scores on all counts.

If it's sword-on-sword with arrows-in-the-air action you want, Robin Hood delivers in a big way.

It's a little too obvious and ham-handed in places to be a really good movie, but any film that lasts two hours and 20 minutes without seeming like a long, hard slog can't be all bad.

This physically imposing picture brings abundant political-historical dimensions to its epic canvas, yet often seems devoted to stifling whatever pleasure audiences may have derived from the popular legend.

Robin Hood is head and shoulders above the sort of lightheaded epics Hollywood typically offers during the summer season.

A dark and brawny version of the Robin Hood legend that anchors itself in English history and loses some of the merriment in the process.

The swash buckles under the weight of heavy verbiage in Robin Hood, Ridley Scott's well-intended but weakly executed retelling of the ancient woodland hero legend.