With “Iron Man 2” kicking off the summer movie season last Friday, we’re now only a few days from the next blockbuster: Ridley Scott’s new version of “Robin Hood.” It opens the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday, but the film’s been screening for a few weeks, and the first reviews have turned up overnight. In terms of the previous collaborations between Scott and Russell Crowe, it hasn’t picked up the vitriolic reviews of “A Good Year,” but it ain’t “Gladiator” either, it seems.
Empire have the most positive take, giving the film four stars, and beginning the review by asking “When was the last time you saw a big, action-packed movie that felt like it belonged in its summer-release slot, yet didn’t treat you like a 13 year-old boy?.” It concedes that the film is essentially “Gladiator with bows,” but praises a lightness of touch in Crowe’s performance, and in his relationship with the cast of “Mystery, Alaska” the Merry Men. Oscar Isaac as King John also gets a lot of love, although they do complain about some drifting accents, and the bloodless nature of the action, but it’s a strong review nevertheless.
Jeffrey Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere also liked the film, although not quite to the same degree, calling his reaction “somewhere between fairly and moderately pleased.” He says that “the script is intelligible and intelligent, every frame has been handsomely shot, the production design is first-rate and the cast does its job like the somewhat older pros that most of them are.” It’s a respectful, although not exactly glowing, reaction to the movie.
The trades both weighed in overnight, and both are rather more mixed. Variety compares it to the likes of “Batman Begins” (a film named in several reviews, actually), the “Bourne” trilogy and even Ken Loach, but seems to find the film “joyless”, saying that Crowe lacks “a twinkle of merriment in his eyes” and that “characters are as likely to be assaulted by speeches as by arrows.” The Hollywood Reporter has the opposite reaction, saying it “could be a crowd-pleaser,” even if “its European history is so ludicrously mangled that one almost suspects Mel Brooks and Monty Python’s Flying Circus lent a hand.” Ultimately, they’re most concerned with the way that the film seems to attempt to appeal to several demographics, hurting the whole.
Former Variety reviewer Todd McCarthy, in his first review at his new home at indieWire, compares the film to “Kingdom of Heaven,” saying it’s not as good as “Gladiator,” but better than Kevin Costner’s “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” (which isn’t that hard, really…). Calling it “a fashionably gritty period drama, conceived by intelligent minds and handsomely decked out, but featuring no beating heart or compelling raison d’etre,” McCarthy suggests that both the romance and the lightness are undercooked, while the political intrigue is undercut by the broad nature of the villainy.
There does seem to be something of a consensus emerging, and it seems that, while there may be plenty to enjoy in “Robin Hood,” it’s by no means a home-run, which Universal, coming off a pretty terrible 2009, and already with one big-budget underperformer under their belts this year (“Green Zone”), must be a little concerned about, particularly as several critics comment on how old the film skews. Nevertheless, we tend to enjoy Scott’s work to some degree or other, and we’ll bring you our verdict closer to the film’s release on Friday.
