Film Review: Robin Hood (2010)
Ridley Scott's Robin Hood comes with all the trappings of an epic historical blockbuster yet delivers something far more middling—a film that feels simultaneously overstuffed and undernourished, torn between competing visions of what it wants to be.
The production history proves telling. Originally conceived as a bold revisionist tale—wherein the Sheriff of Nottingham would be the true hero defending English subjects from a thuggish Robin Hood—studio intervention reduced the concept to safer, more conventional territory. Scott, ever the reliable company man, obliged. The result is Brian Helgeland's screenplay, which retreats to familiar Victorian and Hollywood stereotypes: Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe), a common archer in Richard the Lionheart's army, assumes the identity of the deceased Sir Robert Loxley and becomes embroiled in late twelfth-century English political intrigue.
The narrative attempts to serve two masters and satisfies neither. For devotees of the legend, we are presented with the familiar Merry Men—Will Scarlett, Little John, Friar Tuck—yet these characters receive such short shrift that their inclusion feels perfunctory. Meanwhile, those seeking serious historical drama must contend with a convoluted plot involving Prince John's ruinous taxation, the scheming traitor Godfrey (Mark Strong), and an impending French invasion, all crammed into a running time that cannot accommodate such narrative weight. The historical material alone would suffice for several series of The Tudors; here it renders numerous characters underdeveloped and wasted, including the Sheriff (played by Matthew Macfadyen) himself, whilst reducing Godfrey to a pantomime villain.
Scott's direction compounds these script deficiencies. The action sequences—crucial for any retelling of this myth—are handled with uncharacteristic clumsiness. Worse still is the director's apparent compulsion to "borrow" set-pieces from superior films: battle scenes evoke The Lord of the Rings and Braveheart, whilst the climactic beach landing constitutes something approaching a direct remake of Saving Private Ryan, anachronistic medieval setting notwithstanding.
The film's most egregious failing, however, is its conclusion. Rather than crafting a satisfying narrative arc, Scott opts for an open ending—"and so the legend begins"—transparently designed to launch a franchise that mercifully never materialised. This creative bankruptcy suggests a director aware he has exhausted his imaginative reserves, hoping future instalments might correct what this film could not.
Crowe and Blanchett bring professional gravitas to their roles, and Max von Sydow lends dignity as Sir Walter Loxley. Yet fine performances cannot salvage a project so fundamentally compromised by studio caution and directorial overreach.
Rating: 4/10
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