Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I’m finding it difficult to muster up any sort of energy to write about Ridley Scott’s ROBIN HOOD… not only is it late, I’m tired and I have an interview in the morning, but the movie itself just doesn’t bring any real emotion out of me. If you’ve read the other reviews on the site I fall somewhere between Capone’s faintly praising review and Harry’s offended dissection. I’m with Capone for most of it, but he loses me when he talks about Scott proving he’s once again the master of epic period battle sequences. The final 30 minutes, the big fight on the beach, is by far the worst parts of the movie… choppy, amateurish, unmotivated… The biggest let down for me, personally. It hurts knowing some of the evolution of this project, I must admit. I can feign complete impartiality, but that would be dishonest. Knowing that it began the development process as a tale about the Sheriff of Nottingham, played by Crowe, and how he sees Robin Hood fascinated me. It’s much more interesting than doing a prequel, in my book, but hey… I love Russell Crowe, I love Ridley Scott, I love Cate Blanchett, I love Max Von Sydow, I love the story of Robin Hood. I might not have gone into the movie thinking it was the most interesting direction they could have gone in, but I went in trusting I’d get quality filmmaking from some of the best in the business. On a technical level ROBIN HOOD is fine until the aforementioned finale. The production design and cinematography is well done. There’s great attention to the period, layers of detail in every frame. I also don’t get the impression that any of the actors are phoning it in. Crowe comes the closest, but he feels more restrained than disinterested. What struck me about halfway through the movie was that I was just interested enough to be paying attention without feeling any kind of emotional investment. The only time that tilted over into genuine interest was when Robin was palling around with his Merry Men. I really liked their chemistry and felt their camaraderie was natural. Especially Kevin Durand and Scott Grimes, who I’ll always see as the kid from Critters. Mark Strong turns in some good evil bad guy work and I was surprisingly impressed by Oscar Isaac’s Prince/King John, who seemed ridiculous in the trailers. “OUTLLLLLAAAWWWWW” etc etc. That said, everybody who makes it to the finale are done a disservice. They spend so much time making John smarter and more weasely charming than I expected only to have him turn on a dime once he’s able to rally the people of England behind him. For no reason. It really makes me wonder if this project was KINGDOM OF HEAVENed because it seems like we’re missing an act between the big beach battle and the last 3 minutes in which Robin Longstride becomes Robin of the Hood. I really hope there’s a better cut out there, but I have a nagging feeling that the ending was tacked on in order to have trailer and TV spot moments (everything from OUTLAWWWWWWW to the arrow coming out of nowhere to nail the notice the Sheriff is trying to post to a tree comes from the last 3 minutes of the movie). The ending really gets me riled up thinking back on the film because it takes the movie from being a slight missed opportunity to straight up poor storytelling. And don’t get me started on the kid version of the Scarecrow that leads feral children into battle… or that they try to “Ripley” Maid Marion only to immediately have her fall helplessly into the water and nearly drown. So, we’re left with a movie that’s slightly mediocre, edging into good territory that totally jumps the shark/nukes the fridge/floats into the yellow love cave or whatever idiom you want to slap on it in the last act. That’s all I have to say about that, as Mr. Gump would say. Now I need to catch a few hours of sleep before I harass Jonah Hill and Nicholas Stoller. -Quint quint@aintitcool.com Follow Me On Twitter
