Robin Hood: Epic or Epic Fail?
Movie Reviews May 26th. 2010, 8:28pmHow many Robin Hoods can you name off hand? Douglas Fairbanks, Patrick Bergin, Daffy Duck, Frank Sinatra, Errol Flynn, Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Cary Elwes to name a few (for extra credit tell me the movies and cartoon) and now Russell Crowe. I like Russell Crowe. I like epic movies. I like medieval warfare. This movie has all the elements for greatness, yet it left me scratching my head wondering why it didn’t work. The Story is simple enough, but not gripping since we know the characters pretty well. The acting is pretty good. The action is not bad. Cate Blanchette and Crowe have some chemistry and they look good together. Maybe the problem is their are too many movies here and not one new one. It seems Ridley Scott, and maybe the producers, thought it would be box office gold to take other successfull movies and “Robin Hood” them. Sort of take from the rich and hope the parts added together will make one big blockbuster. Unfortunately, they stole from the good movies and gave us a poor one. Let’s see…this was Braveheart, Gladiator, and Saving Private Ryan wrapped into a mess. The invasion scene was bizarre with WWII landing craft appearing to be skinned with wood and oars added. I thought Tom Hanks in armor was going to come out of one. The editor had his hands full I’m sure to make some sense out of it all. There were obviously cut scenes/footage waiting for a director’s cut or DVD filler. It was entertaining at times and some will overlook the technical horrors and enjoy a sort of romantic story that is the main interest overall. What might have been we’ll never know. Wait for it on Netflix if you must.