Reviews edited by Mark Adams
mark.adams@
emap.com
REVIEWS
Robin Hood
REVIEWED BY MIKE GOODRIDGE
Ridley Scott’s ‘origins’ version of the Robin Hood legend is a solid, if ultimately uninspiring, adven- ture epic which contains more of the flat historical storytelling of Kingdom Of Heaven than the stir- ring emotion of Gladiator. Nevertheless, the pack- age is a strong one and it is set for a muscular box-office run when it opens in 70-plus territories this weekend after its splashy opening night launch in Cannes here today. Like Scott’s other period adventures, Robin
Hood will outperform domestic in international. Kingdom Of Heaven grossed a whopping $164m in international to a puny $47.4m in domestic thea- tres, while Gladiator was a closer-run thing in 2000 ($270 international, $188m domestic). The Scott/Russell Crowe team-up which started with Gladiator is no guarantee of success — both A
Good Year and Body Of Lies disappointed — but
then this is the first Scott/Crowe action-adventure since Gladiator and the combination of star, direc- tor and genre should be enough to open big. The film is skewed older than other blockbust-
ers in the early summer such as Iron Man 2 and
Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time. Certainly
Crowe’s youthful lustre from Gladiator a decade ago has worn off and his Marion — Cate Blanchett — is hardly Miley Cyrus. A-lister Crowe is coming off a couple of under-performers (Body Of Lies, State Of Play) and could use a hit. Like Batman Begins and last year’s Star Trek movie, Robin Hood is the story of how the myth
OPENING FILM
US. 2010. 140mins
Director Ridley Scott
Production companies
Imagine Entertainment, Scott Free Productions, Relativity Media
Worldwide distribution
Universal Pictures/UPI Producers Brian Grazer, Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe
Executive producers
Charles J D Schlissel, Michael Costigan, Jim Whitaker, Ryan Kavanaugh Screenplay Brian Helgeland, from a story by Helgeland, Ethan Reiff & Cyrus Voris Cinematography John Mathieson Main cast Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, William Hurt, Max von Sydow, Mark Strong, Mark Addy, Oscar Isaac, Danny Huston, Kevin Durand, Scott Grimes, Matthew Macfadyen, Eileen Atkins, Simon McBurney
begins. At the film’s end, Robin Longstride has become Robin Hood and steps into hiding in Sher- wood Forest for the first time, leaving the film open for multiple sequels. Obviously whether a Robin Hood 2 happens is up in the air until the numbers come rolling in; a franchise is no sure thing. Scott and his screenwriter, Brian Helgeland,
have come up with a complex historical context in which to place the mythical bandit. King Richard the Lionheart, an imperious and arrogant leader as played by Danny Huston, is returning from the Crusades to England with a demoralised, unpaid army when he is killed at the siege of Chalus Castle. Archer Robin Longstride (Crowe) and some
other stragglers — Little John (Durand), Will Scar- let (Grimes) and Allan A’Dayle (Alan Doyle) — set off to the coast to return to England and on their way come across a party of ambushed English noblemen including Sir Robert Loxley carrying the dead king’s crown. In his dying breath, Loxley begs Robin to take his sword home to his father in Nottingham. Assuming Loxley’s identity, Robin and com-
pany deliver the crown back to Richard’s brother and the heir to the throne, the impetuous Prince John (Isaac) and his French bride Isabella (Lea Seydoux). Then he sets out to Nottingham where he meets Loxley’s widow Marion (Blanchett) and father Sir Walter (von Sydow), who persuades him to continue posing as his son. Robin and Marion develop first a begrudging respect, then passion- ate love for each other.
As Prince John and his duplicitous henchman
Godfrey (Strong) rape and pillage the land and eke every last penny out of the people, Robin prepares to join the fight against the crown but an invasion from France presents a more pressing problem. The invented plot generally works well and
Scott eases in effectively the familiar characters — Mark Addy’s Friar Tuck, Matthew Macfadyen’s Sheriff of Nottingham — although the emergence of a subplot about Robin’s saintlike father and the rising of Marion as a crusading queen (Blanchett reprises her Elizabeth armour) do not work as well. Indeed, the film does bear the strain of trying too hard, not just to be as gritty and realistic as possible but to shoehorn the legend into the his- tory. It is less thrilling for it. Scott’s film-making fluency is as impressive as
ever and the contributions from his usual team — DoP John Mathieson, production designer Arthur Max, costume designer Janty Yates, editor Pietro Scalia and composer Marc Streitenfeld — are pre- dictably fine. Crowe rarely cracks a smile as this Robin Long-
stride aka Robin of Loxley aka Robin Hood but his brooding Gladiator-in-green-tights turn is gener- ally compelling; Blanchett makes for a feisty hero- ine and Scott peoples his cast with a powerful ensemble of name actors — from the ubiquitous Mark Strong and Huston to on-the-rise Oscar Isaac, French newcomer Seydoux and old favour- ites Max von Sydow, William Hurt and Eileen Atkins as Eleanor of Aquitaine. They all lend class and heft to the proceedings.
May 12, 2010 Screen International at the Cannes Film Festival 17 n
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