Robin Hood: Movie Review

One word: no. Ridley Scott's undertaking of "Robin Hood" is so unbearably boring I had trouble staying awake. The only things that shocked me back to waking life during the grueling two hour and twenty minute run time were the occasional decent battle scenes, and a few good moments with the Merry Men. Honestly though, I don't feel Mr. Scott is to blame for this tripe. This movie stinks of Hollywood corporate fat-catism. I got the feeling watching this that Scott's hands were pretty well tied, and he did the best he could with the restrictions he had. Still, the movie feels about twice as long as it really is. It is almost completely boring, and the "pay off" at the end of the movie flat out sucks.

Scott's original vision was far different from what we have here. But, as things in Hollywood go as they do, the studio got too involved and said, "we know what people want", and proceeded to mess with Scott's ideas until they were no longer recognizable. While I admire the effort it took to take Robin Hood in a new direction, Scott's initial idea was a much darker take on the story. The Sheriff of Nottingham was going to be challenged with solving a series of grizzly murders in Sherwood Forest. The murders would lead back to Robin Hood eventually. I would have loved to see this take on the story. Instead, what we get is a few decent battle scenes, and two hours of boring back-story (that could have fit into fifteen minutes) to Robin Longstride's life.

The biggest problem with this movie for me is the pay off: the final battle. The entire movie we're being told of this impending French invasion on the shores of England. We're hearing about it so often I could think only about how awesome it was going to be. I'm thinking, "finally, okay, this is going to be worth watching the two previous hours." Nope. We're led to believe this epic and bloody battle is going to take place, and it turns out to be nothing of the sort. It left me completely unsatisfied, and let down. If this movie had been an hour and a half I would have dug it but as it is, it's not, and I didn't. There is, simply, too much down time, and not enough about what makes Robin a really cool character.

Just pass.