A quick disclaimer; when I went to view this film, the heating was broken in the cinema. Now, if you’ve never sat in a bloody massive room with no lights or heating before, allow me to fill you in – it’s extremely cold. However, I was wrapped up pretty warm, and I did try not to let the temperature affect my enjoyment of the film.
First, a quick history lesson. Ridley Scott is one of the great modern Hollywood directors. His work is so well known that his impressive filmography hardly needs mentioning; with Blade Runner, and Alien under his belt relatively early in his movie directing career, he went on to bring both Thelma and Louise and Black Hawk Down to the big screen – along with a plethora of other films, some equally famous, some less so.
He and Russell Crowe teamed up for the first time at the turn of the centaury to create the unforgettable blockbuster Gladiator. After this success, the two worked together again six years later (2006) on ‘A Good Year’ that I will shamefacedly admit that I haven’t yet seen.
In any case, when Ridley and Russell announced that they would be working together on another historical-war-epic, you can understand why film fans would be excited. Since Gladiator the two have worked on a number of projects, but none really were comparable in scope or drama (apart from perhaps American Gangster). In any case, when I heard that Robin Hood was going to be a 140 minute beast, I will admit that I was expecting good things. Gladiator things.
But the length only caused an issue in a cinema with no heating. By the time the credits started rolling I could no longer feel my toes. And perhaps that is why I kind of wish this film was shorter. The two and a half hours can’t be said to be wasted – there’s little material that you could sensibly cut – but nonetheless far too much time seems to be spent establishing the characters and the situation than having events unfold. A more concise way to say this is that… while watching the film you constantly feel like the entire thing is just a ‘set up’ for some grand, spectacular ending. And the payoff for this almost constant establishment throughout the film is a rather uninspired half hour of battle sequences and cliché speeches. Hurm.
What’s more the dialogue in Robin Hood is often completely unintelligible. Honestly I think about 50% of what people were saying was simply lost in bizarre accents and breathy mumbling. Another strike.
That doesn’t mean that this film isn’t cool or fun. But if you want to see a cool and fun film right now, you should always choose Iron Man 2 over this no questions asked. It simply offers much more bang for your buck.
So despite all of this I’m not going to write Robin Hood off as a bad film. It’s certainly vastly better than the abhorrent ‘Clash of the Titans’, which was, without question, the most disappointing film of the year for me. Instead I’m merely going to shrug my shoulders, tell you that it’s too long for a film that doesn’t offer you anything new, and point you in the direction of Iron Man 2.
WHAT TO DO NOW?