Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Robin Hood (2010)

Up front, I'm not the biggest Russel Crowe fan. I don't dislike him but I don't love him and rush out to see his films. In a pinch, I can't think of a movie of his I love. A few I can't stand--like Gladiator (which is important to note for this Scott/Crowe re-pairing)--but none I love. I do, however, adore Cate Blanchett. I'll be her when I grow up (shush, we're going to ignore that she's only 10 years older than me).

But, I adore Robin Hood. The Disney version is a favorite as is the Kevin Costner film (yeah, revel in that--you won't get me to say I like much Costner has done) and, um, yeah, Men in Tights rocks.

So, those are my biases. This film wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. But, when I go to a movie titled Robin Hood, I want to see a movie about Robin Hood, not a movie about how Robin Longstride became Robin Hood. We get very few precious moments at the very very end of Robin Hood.

If I can get past that, and the questionable historical poetic license taken, I can't quite get past the overly ambitious geography of the film. It tries to cover too much ground--literally--and quickly gets overwhelming.

And, while Mark Strong is super fun, Godfrey could have been cut as well as his entire subplot and that would have cleaned up the geography problem and tightened the plot.

More or less, eh. Could have been better. Could have been a lot worse.

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