He also ensured Michael Curtiz directed the film, particularly the charged action scenes in the third reel, after the film lost its first director. Wallis got the studio to take a chance on Errol Flynn, then with just Captain Blood under his belt, and again paired him with his once and future onscreen love interest, Olivia de Havilland, after fighting against the unthinkably idiotic decision a previous script-writer had made to cut Maid Marian from the film. Wallis salvaged the production after James Cagney walked off the project, leaving the eponymous role empty. With the clout of Warner Brothers behind him, executive Hal B. I guess that’s what you get for being earnest. Every appearance since Errol Flynn rode onto the screen in his eye-popping green get-up has either been an homage, parody or subversion of him. So it is not without some irony that I express this opinion: Warner Brothers, one of the great titans of Old Hollywood, made what has become the definitive version of the character, at least from a cinematic standpoint. Over the centuries, authorities even banned stories of Robin Hood because they were too openly rebellious, forcing storytellers to take the clever tack that he was a champion of legitimate authority by making him loyal to Richard the Lionheart.ĭespite that, it’s fair to say that the ethos of Robin Hood is and remains rooted in raising his English longbowman’s middle finger to The Man. He’s usually portrayed as a knight or at least a man of noble birth these days, but in the earliest telling he was a yeoman-a man with a small estate or the servant of a nobleman. Which is to say, it was an example of a movie that is the precise opposite of 1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood, the verdant Technicolor swashbuckler that, in 80 years of subsequent adaptations, remains the standard against which is measured any appearance of Robin Hood, be it full-length film or cheeky cartoon cameo.Ī collaboration of Old Hollywood’s merriest men and women The figure of Robin Hood has evolved so much over the hundreds of years of storytelling that gave rise to him that it’s foolish to call any one iteration the definitive one. In the hands of Ridley Scott, and starring Cate Blanchett and freaking Max von Sydow, however, it became a dumb film that culminates in a swordfight on a beach where Robin Hood- the greatest archer ever-fires one arrow. An artifact of why this happened is actually embedded right there in that last link: If you look at the Box Office Mojo link to it, the film was originally to be titled Nottingham, and would reportedly have been from the perspective not of the forest outlaw but of the beleaguered sheriff tasked with hunting him down. My rating is 3/10.The last major studio Robin Hood film, 2010’s Russell Crowe vehicle, was a joyless post- Lord of the Rings slog that reviewed poorly and flopped hard in theaters. I would rather have watched "The adventures of Robin Hood" (1938) or "Robin Hood, prince of thieves" (1991) than waste two and a half hours on this disappointment. What I liked most about the movie was the revision of Lady Marian's character, well portrayed by Cate Blanchett, but that's about that. The heart of the director and of the main actor are just not there, and it shows. Even the battle scenes feel boring, predictable, and not spectacular at all. It is almost inevitable to compare this to "Gladiator", because the latter excels at all the points that "Robin Hood" fails at. It is a failed epic, devoid of passion, adventure, or feeling. I was surprised at how boring this movie turned out to be. So Ridley Scott tried to take a new approach on a well-known story, but the results are not impressive. It is by all practical means a "prequel" to the classic legend of Robin Hood. It presents all the known characters, though many of them are vastly underused, and it describes how they came to know each other and become involved in each other's lives. This is rather the (embellished) narration of how Robin Longstride came to be Robin Hood. As it has repeatedly been pointed out, you should not go into this expecting to find one more version of the "prince of thieves" theme. Technically and aesthetically accomplished, but empty of substance, and full of pretentiousness, this "Robin Hood" is, in my opinion, one absolutely unnecessary revision of the mythical English archer's story.
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