Friday, May 14, 2010
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Friday, May 14, 2010
MOVIE REVIEW
Robin Hood
I, Sir Robert. The
King and You: Not Impressed.
Russell Crowe as Sir Robert "Robin" Loxley and Cate Blanchett as Lady Marion
Loxley in Ridley Scott's "Robin Hood", which opened today across the U.S. and
Canada.
Universal Pictures
By
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
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Friday, May 14, 2010
Ridley Scott's "Robin Hood" is neither the best nor the worst big screen
depiction of the mythic, folklore legend from England's Nottingham and
Sheffield. This is apparently good news, but when you're Mr. Scott, who
has collaborated with actor Russell Crowe four previous times ("Gladiator",
"A Good Year", "American
Gangster", "Body Of Lies"), average is not
what you are aiming for.
Mr. Scott is always adept at framing time, place and surroundings with great
aplomb and textbook meticulousness, and does so again here with the locales
representing England and France. Where he falters however, is focus,
specifically the mechanics to tighten the story accompanying the visuals into a
solid, coherent adventure. The camerawork, arguably the biggest enemy of
the film, roams like the wandering eye of a serial adulterer. Numerous
tracking shots, crane shots and long lens shots wallow in the festive scenes of
beautiful green landscape and the overall production design.
But story-wise, many will find "Robin Hood" difficult to engage. Robin of
Loxley (Mr. Crowe) is carefully shown, from his humble roots of commoner folk to
respected leader and fighter for the people. He rounds up a band of men to
fight the onslaught of the French before challenging the King of England's rule
and treatment of the poor. It's not that Brian Helgeland's script is a
disaster -- far from it. The screenplay is better at cultivating a mood
and camaraderie between the players than it is structurally adept at connecting
threads of episodic development in its various scenes. Often we shuttle
back and forth between France and England without appreciating why we are even
taken there at a specific moment in time. It's as if the script is
incomplete and the camerawork serves as filler.
The film's tone shifts from action to romance and then back to action for a
grandstand Hollywood finish. In between, there are a litany of characters
-- Friar Tuck, Little John (lots of fun is made of his name) and a variety of
others. Adding a bit of gender balance to the testosterone equation is
this day's birthday lady Cate Blanchett, who ably and entertainingly shines as
Lady Marion. Stubborn, principled and brittle, Marion has her charm and
strength independently from the title character, and she's every bit up for the
fight. Mr. Crowe, who was one of the film's producers, is adequate as
Robin, grasping the English period accent well, but he's done better work for
Mr. Scott than in this film.
With "Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves" in mind, while watching Mr. Scott's latest
viewers will inevitably look at films like "Elizabeth" (in which Ms. Blanchett
starred), "Gladiator" (in which Mr. Crowe starred) and "Braveheart" (in which
neither starred) and compare and contrast. The first film had a great
performance, the second was "Spartacus"-like theater and the third was fire,
fury and bloodshed. Sadly, "Robin Hood", while fun and entertaining at
times, seems to have exhausted the period genre, for as a film it is tired,
leaden and too long. You can almost see it running out of steam, or at
least taking long pauses for breaths, pauses that could have been edited from
view.
With: William Hurt, Mark Strong, Eileen Atkins, Mark Addy, Oscar Isaacs, Danny
Huston (this reviewer didn't notice or recognize him in the film!) and Max Von
Sydow.
"Robin Hood" is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association Of America for
violence, including intense sequences of warfare, and some
sexual content. The film is in the English and French languages with
occasional English subtitles. The film's running time is two hours and
twenty-seven minutes.
COPYRIGHT 2010. POPCORNREEL.COM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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Read more movie reviews and stories from Omar
here.
Read Omar's "Far-Flung Correspondent" reports for America's pre-eminent Film
Critic Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times -
here
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