The whole premise of Robin Hood is taking from the rich to give to the poor, right? I’m sorry, but I just don’t see anybody in this film who worth robbing from.
The movie is dark, the clothing is dark, the weather is cloudy all the time, the violence is dark and bloody, emotions are dark, and we are even led to believe the noble premise itself is dark…
This is the Dark Ages.
Early in Act One there’s a scene where a bunch of shadows wearing masks robs a farm in the middle of the night. We later learn that this group stole the village’s entire grain supply and with no seeds to plant the village will starve to death. The local church supports this theft and insists on carting away the grain for taxes to the government.
Everybody knows the story of Robin Hood already. We automatically assume the band of brigands stealing from the poor farm (and the lady of the farm, no less — how bad can you get?) are Robin Hood and associates.
We see the fabled Friar Tuck insisting on carting away all the life-giving grain. This remains in our head for half an hour, reinforced at regular intervals — Robin Hood is one of these thugs who steals from women, and Friar Tuck seconds the motion.
It would be so much better to leave that scene out. This same shadowy group is later important to the plot, as secondary heroes. All we know about them until the point where they come to the rescue is that they’re thieves. That they later follow the heroine into battle only diminishes her, not elevates her as a leader worth following.
We’re introduced to the main bad guy after a few gory battles where the Crusaders attack a castle in France. France? They’re painted as ruthless blood thirsty mercenaries anxious for one last castle burning before they go home to England. The bad guy is bald (how uninspiring), and he eats an oyster with the blood of the King of France on it… Are we supposed to be grossed out? Seeing bright red blood, in the overall context of shades of gray, is more of a shock.
For the record, King Philip of France and King Richard of England led the Third Crusade. They feuded when Richard refused to marry Philip’s daughter. They fought when Richard was on the way home after the Crusades. Richard was captured, etc… All of this is just way too much “pipeline” or background information to cram into Act One.
A couple of scenes later we see the secondary bad guy having sex with a French broad in the Royal Palace in London. His wife, dressed like a nun, watches this through a peep hole. His mother, the Queen, barges into the room and tries to take the tart our of her son’s bed. The boy stands there, stark naked, arguing with his Mommy the Queen of England. Worse yet, she doesn’t even bat an eye — in fact, she stares…
Richard the Lionhearted has the heart of a rogue and traitor. The Crusades are an exercise in genocide against Islam. The Queen is a shrew and harridan. The King’s only son is a horny bastard with no class. The Church is stingy and hateful.
Crusaders massacred thousands of innocent Muslims in the Holy land, showing absolutely no remorse. (King Richard calls Robin Hood naive for feeling badly about massacring women and children.)
Who wrote this thing, Iran’s Ayatolla Khomeini? Who financed it, OPEC? Who directed it, Wall Street Republicans insistent on legitimizing robbing the poor to give to the rich?
The whole of Act One (the first 30 minutes or so), when your are supposed to draw the audience into the magic of the story, is disconnected, disjointed, and choppy. There is no rhythm. Robin Hood himself is a petty, gambling, sneaky character who steals the horse, title, and chain mail of a real knight for free passage across the Channel to Britain with his small band of equally shady characters.
Later in the film, which goes okay once Robin Hood becomes the central character, there’s a particularly disturbing scene where a bad guy toys with a blind old man in a mock sword fight. That doesn’t make the bad guy look evil for doing this, it makes the screenwriter seem hateful and prejudiced. Have the old boy die saving his people from asphyxiation, let him go out with dignity and honor. He’s the only one in the whole cast worthy of a hero’s death.
I wish I had never seen this film. It will be years before I get all the ugliness and hate out of my head — the Hate for God, Country, Honor, Kindly Old Men, and Women — the Ugliness of a world class film that dares to so disparage a cherished character in Western folklore. The only reason I don’t rate it as “trash” is that it symbolizes how much money Hollywood is willing to pay to destroy the very underpinnings of the few things left in this world that are good and noble and decent.
Russell Crowe deserved an Academy Award for rising above all this crap and turning in a heroic performance, simultaneously fighting past wrongs and present prejudices.
Of all the other gross and indecent things, at least Robin Hood survives intact.
A lesser actor would have caved in to the status quo.
