Hanna has a mildly interesting story at its core, but it’s the techno blasting action sequences that drive its appeal.  It’s fast when it moves, but it drags when it gets dramatic.  It’s also astounding the level of violence you can squeeze into a PG-13 film these days.   It’s true; if you stay away from potty mouth humor and blatant sexual imagery, you can dodge an R rating even with this much blood and mutilation.

Hanna tells the story of a sixteen year old girl of the same name who has been raised by her father Erik to be an assassin.  Unknown to her, she is more than just a mal-adjusted young killer who’s spent the better part of her young life in the Arctic Circle with her father training -  she’s also the product of a government project led by a ruthless CIA operative named Marissa.   Seeking to make the perfect soldier, the program she leads deals with DNA splicing into embryos and implanting them.  The project is ultimately closed by the government and all products eliminated except for Hanna who manages to escape at age 2 under her father’s protection.  When Hanna decides to expose herself to the world, Marissa is flung back into damage control as she seeks to shut her down and close the project once and for all.

Actress Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones) steals the show in this one.  Cold, methodical and calculating even the ghostly appearance in her eyes gives credibility to this cold-as-ice, kill at will soldier.  The choreography in the fight scenes appeared fluid and well timed – she executed on an amazingly high level and showed a superb scope and reach in her acting ability.  Right behind her performance is Cate Blanchett (The Talented Mr. Ripley) as Marissa.  Evil, manipulative and very functional with a fire arm, she proves to me again just how good she is and the variety of characters she can make accessible.

Director Joe Wright (The Soloist) handles the subject matter fairly well.  His true gift is orchestrating great action sequences fueled by amazing techno beats courtesy of The Chemical Brothers.  Beyond that the film lags at times and seems very Euro-focused in its appeal, not just in its production.  It’s interesting that Focus Features films would release this picture versus a larger or action focused studio.  Their bread and butter is foreign and art-house drama’s, something tells me this one was a spin between the two for the studio.

Hanna has some great and pulse pounding sequences but the lags that make the film feel like a special interest ‘focused’ feature might leave you cold.

3 Stars out of 5.

Hanna is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some sexual material and language.  Running Time: 111 minutes

Stealing from the rich to give to the poor.

Now that’s a lesson that Brian Helgeland, the screenwriter for Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood could have, and should have, taken to heart. In this case, it’s his own anemic, battle-centric script that qualifies as poor, and it could desperately use some of that energy and charisma that the richest adaptations possess.

Chief amongst those older, wealthy forefathers is Errol Flynn’s iconic classic, The Adventures of Robin Hood, which remains the benchmark for the story despite belittling remarks from the makers of this version and Costner’s earlier Prince of Thieves. Picking at the costuming and the generally light tone are easy and misguided attacks, and they didn’t help those more belligerent filmmakers turn out a product that could remotely match it. Not back in 1991, and not now.

However, that’s not to say that this new Robin Hood is without value as a breezy summer entertainment, or that Scott and Crowe are just blithely cashing paychecks. As a matter of fact, right off the bat, it’s quite easy to point out that this one is far and away a better movie than Prince of Thieves, although it lacks the one thing that film had going for it; a likable and entertaining villain. That version had Rickman as a scene stealing Sheriff of Nottingham. This one has Matthew MacFayden bumbling through a handful of scenes as the same character, barely making an impact in a movie that was originally designed to be the sheriff’s story, told from his perspective.

Predictably, Crowe, who was slated to play the sheriff, eventually took on the Robin Hood role and the entire film became a more conventional telling with only a few minor alterations that allow it to become a kind of revisionist prequel.  Scott’s Hood explains how it is that Robin and the gang ended up living off the land, hiding in the forest, and sticking it to Prince John and his lackeys, although it has no explanation for how it is they became merry. Mostly, it’s a stone-faced serious affair, taking much of the joy to be had from numerous axe-cleavings, arrows through soft tissue, and swords eviscerating bone. This isn’t a big, colorful, boyhood adventure but a grimy, brutal warrior film with a few dashes of social justice sprinkled (and sometimes just liberally dumped) throughout.

Crowe’s Robin isn’t even actually Loxley, but a man named Longstride who fights alongside Richard the Lionheart during the Crusades and returns, with his band of deserters, to the birthplace of the real Robert Loxely, bearing the fallen man’s sword. He has been tasked to bring it to the Loxley homestead but what he finds when he gets there is a small, demoralized hamlet called Nottingham,  Robert’s beautiful but steely wife, Marion(Cate Blanchett), and his old, blind father, Sir Walter,  played gamely by Max Von Sydow. Walter suggests that Robin pretend to be his dead son, and Marion’s husband, so as to save the family land and curtail the lecherous advances of the Sheriff.

There is enough plot in that synopsis, with the added charm of Robin’s posse–John Little, Will Scarlett, Allan A’Dayle, and Friar Tuck– to generate a great little movie. Unfortunately, the creators are both more and less ambitious than that, and give us a story about French invasion, royal subversion, and the struggle between John’s tyranny and the restlessness of his subjects. This larger narrative is there to supply all of the generic elements of a dozen other, lesser movies; a cookie-cutter villain (not John, but a traitorous toadie named Godfrey), blustery proclamations about the importance of freedom, and a massive, full scale battle scene that looks like it was pulled from the Ridley Scott stock archives.

Does it work? In a way, it does. After Scott/Crowe brought the epic, historical adventure back with Gladiator in 2000, Ridley himself has been at the forefront of the genre, delivering films of great detail, realism, and a certain, modern sense of fatalism. These are not the adventure movies of yesteryear–heck, they weren’t even Braveheart, although they desperately yearned to be– but a new breed of solemn hack-and-slashers, more interested in the sight of humans stabbing one another than in any sense of capturing the sweep and romanticism of a fictitious antiquity. But, like 2005′s Kingdom of Heaven (which has an absolutely terrific Director’s Cut), Robin Hood manages to satisfy the demands of the genre thanks to a strong cast and Scott’s eye for beautiful imagery and stunning compositions.

The movie is visually compelling and wonderfully designed from an artistic perspective. The rolling, green hills of an ancient English countryside are a welcome distraction from the CGI heavy smash-up of recent summer entries, and the sets are a thing of beauty, from the rustic, medieval interior of Sir Walter’s home, to the muddy, bloody encampment of King Richard. There are handsomely constructed action scenes, although we have seen their like many times before, and they fulfill their purpose admirably. In the end, though, the images alone can’t quite save the film.

What does make Robin worth seeing is the cast, particularly Blanchett’s earthy and pragmatic Marion, who is a thousand miles away from DeHaviland’s portrayal, but no less interesting for it. Her interactions with Robin are not the zesty courtship of young, idealistic love, but the cautious, deliberate motions of a woman who has more to think of than simple, personal happiness. If the film had actually been brave enough to develop a smaller, more dramatic movie around their relationship, it could have blossomed into something wonderful.  Crowe isn’t playing the kind of Robin I wanted to see, but kudos to his approach, which posits Longstride as a world weary archer who could live like a selfish outlaw if not for that nagging sense of responsibility rattling around in his noggin.

Mark Addy was born to play Friar Tuck, and he has no lack of the required bluster or drunken zeal. Kevin Durand, Scott Grimes and Alan Doyle are rather playful with their characters and pretend not to notice that they are typical sidekicks with recognizable names. Matthew MacFayden as the sheriff seems to have a sympathetic inkling as to what kind of man it requires to be the utter tool of a king, living out a gloomy anonymity in a podunk backwater. Unfortunately, none of that is in the script, only in MacFayden’s eyes, and the movie would rather see him as a buffoon whose only purpose is to be mocked for his seven minutes of screen-time. Sydow still has a wizened, aristocratic glow after all these years, and a flashback scene has the sublime pleasure of showing us his younger, stoic visage from The Seventh Seal, wherein he was the returning knight coming home from the Crusades.

The weakest acting link in the film is Mark Strong, the duplicitous Godfrey, who runs around the movie trying to usurp John, kill Robin, and participate in the same activities that Jason Isaac relished in The Patriot; mainly, stabbing friends of the hero, burning churches, and just staring smugly at the camera out of the corner of his eye. It doesn’t help that Strong sort of looks like the lovechild of Elias Koteas and Andy Garcia, and once you figure out that bald heads and hook noses aren’t always intrinsically menacing, he has little to offer. He’s playing the same character he slept-walked through in Sherlock Holmes and Kick Asss; a vague, insidious man who hasn’t the time for anything more treacherous than whatever meager act the screenplay has scrounged up for him. Strong, you are a fine actor. Do something else before you get terminally typecast.

In the end, Robin Hood is a movie that plays like by-the-numbers Friday night action fare. Due to the craft and care put into making it, Scott briefly pulls it out of that rut and delivers a film I was happy to watch and did enjoy, although admiration here is higher than real affection. The problem is that Robin finally does build a compelling case for this prequel attempt, and by the time it gets us where we are supposed to be, at the start of the story, we are geared up for a proper adventure and then the credits roll.

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

Atomic Popcorn would like to extend to you, our loyal readers, the opportunity on behalf of Universal’s highly anticipated action film, to see Robin Hood. Robin Hood stars Oscar Winners Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett. Robin Hood will hit theaters May 14^th and the promotional screening will be held Tuesday, May 11^th .

For those of you living under a rock here is the synopsis around this updated look at the folk tale that is Robin Hood.

Oscar winner Russell Crowe stars as the legendary figure known by generations as “Robin Hood,” whose exploits have endured in popular mythology and ignited the imagination of those who share his spirit of adventure and righteousness.  In 13th century England, Robin and his band of marauders confront corruption in a local village and lead an uprising against the crown that will forever alter the balance of world power.  And whether thief or hero, one man from humble beginnings will become an eternal symbol for freedom for his people.

Robin Hood chronicles the life of an expert archer, previously interested only in self—preservation, from his service in King Richard’s army against the French. Upon Richard’s death, Robin travels to Nottingham, a town suffering from the corruption of a despotic sheriff and crippling taxation, where he falls for the spirited widow Lady Marion (Oscar winner Cate Blanchett), a woman skeptical of the identity and motivations of this crusader from the forest. Hoping to earn the hand of Maid Marion and salvage the village, Robin assembles a gang whose lethal mercenary skills are matched only by its appetite for life. Together, they begin preying on the indulgent upper class to correct injustices under the sheriff.

With their country weakened from decades of war, embattled from the ineffective rule of the new king and vulnerable to insurgencies from within and threats from afar, Robin and his men heed a call to ever greater adventure.  This unlikeliest of heroes and his allies set off to protect their country from slipping into bloody civil war and return glory to England once more.

Trailer:

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Ridley Scott has finally delivered a Robin Hood trailer I can get behind.

Scott has been exploring the familiar ground of the epic for almost a decade now, starting with Gladiator, his first collaboration with Crowe. Now, with Robin Hood, he looks set to deliver something classically entertaining and action-packed.

This trailer is full of the typically beautiful imagery we expect with Scott and what looks to be engaging performances from Crowe and Blanchett, who’s taking the role of Maid Marian: Action Hero. What pleases me is that this looks like the Robin Hood we know and love, with plenty more added to it. I’m no fan of Prince of Thieves, and this certainly isn’t in the same vein of Flynn’s The Adventures of Robin Hood. Still, there’s something here that suggests the Robin Hood I grew up enjoying.

Gone is the terrible heavy metal of the first teaser, and in its place are the first hints of a real story. This is going all the way back to Robin’s childhood, and I’m expecting nothing less than Gladiator-level goodness.

Check it out:

You know you’re working in the bizarre world of Hollywood when your film is delayed even with a name like Cate Blanchett attached to star. Your movie can have everything going for it, but one little shift in the tide and it will be iced indefinitely.

That’s what has happened to Indian Summer, the Cate Blanchett film that Universal Pictures has delayed, ostensibly due to “how challenging the environment for upscale, adult-oriented drama has become.”

Director Joe Wright (helmer of Pride & Prejudice and Atonement) has designed his film to be “an adaptation of Alex von Tunzelmann’s book about the last days of Britain’s colonial rule of India and the symbolic end of Blighty’s status as a world superpower … Blanchett was cast as Edna Mountbatten, wife of Lord Mountbatten, who was the last viceroy of the British Indian Empire and oversaw the country’s transition to independence in 1947.”

There are several reasons why Wright’s film has been put on the backburner. The first is that the studio has deemed audiences uninterested in a $40 million period piece. This seems to not make sense, because Pride & Prejudice and Atonement were whopping successes. However, Indian Summer does lack as strong of an audience hook as those films possessed.

Second came the logistical problems of shooting in India — a setting in which the location would control a large amount of the film’s subject material. Wright said that the film was “in between a rock and a hard place … the Indian government wanted us to make less of the love story while the studio wanted us to make more of the love story.”

While the film has been indefinitely postponed, Blanchett and Wright will be attached for the foreseeable future.

Imagine walking out of your country cottage to see a bunch of guys clad in medieval wear, on horses galloping towards your bangers and mash. Yeah, I’d think I was high too.

Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood is currently filming in the English country and Britain’s Daily Mail snapped a few photos of the goings-on.

Spotted filming a dramatic sequence in Bourne Woods, Surrey, this week, a group of actors dressed in 12th century clothes rode at high speed on black and white horses.   As the men rode through the village, extras playing peasants cowered by an old stone bridge as they hid from the Sheriff of Notthingham’s trouble-making troupe.  Filming on the epic started last month after years of production delays.  Producers sent out a casting call for 600 extras to play the Sheriff’s cronies.  Oscar-winner Crowe was not on set this week, but his character is expected to return to the same village set and ‘give back to the poor’.  The upcoming film has a stellar cast, with Australian actress Cate Blanchett as Maid Marion, Dame Eileen Atkins as Eleanor of Aquitaine and Matthew MacFadyen as the Sheriff.

Robin Hood’s U.S. release is set for May, 2010.

Robin Hood is coming back to life...again

The latest trio to hop on board for the Ridley Scott helmed pic, Robin Hood. Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett will fill in the key spots as Robin of Loxley and Maid Marian. The list of newcomers includes Scott Grimes (ER), Alan Doyle and Kevin Durand (X-Men Origins: Wolverine).

Utter the words Indiana Jones and immediately everybody knows what you’re talking about.  You’re talking about fast-paced, globe-trotting quests for long-lost artifacts, ancient deathtraps and amazing action sequences.  But most importantly, you’re talking about a cinematic icon who has become a household name for any film buff.  From the fedora hat to the bullwhip, Indiana Jones the character is one whom almost everybody loves.

This year, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was released after a 19 year-long wait, and the results were for the most part a mixed bag for everyone.  Of course there were those (myself included) who continued to be thrilled and fascinated by everything, however there were also those who were disappointed by it.  All I have to say to those people is were you watching the same movie I was?  Because the “Indy 4″ I’ve now seen a total of five times retains everything that made the original three so great, making for yet another solid entry in the franchise.  Yes, i agree that sometimes it does stretch the boundaries of logic even by Indy standards (i.e. the whole refrigerator scene and a piece of the jungle sequence), but overall it’s a very fun ride that returns us to the world of a hero missing from the big screen for too long.

Without going into great detail about the plot, the fourth film involves a hunt for an ancient artifact that may contain clues to extraterrestrials.  Yes, aliens actually made an appearance in an Indy movie, although they’re commonly referred to as ‘interdimensional beings’ in the movie.  Along for the ride is Indy’s long-lost son, Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf), a double-crossing friend (Ray Winstone), and old flame Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen).  This time, the Russians are the bad guys and they’re led by the cold Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett).  Everyone’s after the Crystal Skull, which has a mystery surrounding it that has to do ith the mythical Lost City of Gold.

This 2-Disc Limited  Edition is loaded with behind-the-scenes features that detail every step of the filmmaking process.  Along with the film itself on the first disc are two short featurettes:  “The Return Of A Legend” and “Pre-Production”.  “Pre-Production”, of course, gives a brief glimpse into how Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and the others went about developing the idea for “Kingdom” and “Return Of A Legend” pretty much does the same thing, only it focuses more on the collaborative team behind Indy talking about how the dream of a fourth Indiana Jones movie finally became a reality.  The second disc includes more behind-the-scenes goodness, with a detailed 12-part look at the creation of the film.  With this multi-part documentary as well as the one featured on the “Iron Man” Special Edition gives me a renewed faith in the “Making-Of” features for blockbuster DVDs in the future.  Also included are Pre-Visualization Sequences that show exactly how three of the film’s most exciting sequences were conceived, prepped and executed AS WELL AS Galleries, Trailers and a Game Demo for the LEGO Indiana Jones XBOX 360 game.

All in all, this is a must-buy for anyone who enjoyed the film, or any Indy fan period.