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: ★★★☆☆ 

The first teaser trailer for what is already being named an “epic” for Roland Emmerich’s 2012 has just hit the web! And of coarse we have it for you!

Besides the shear awesomeness of what happens in the clip below, it is exactly what it is, it’s a teaser trailer. And boy did they do it right! I really want to see more of it, NOW!!

Emmerich is responsible for other epic films such as Independence Day, The Patriot, The Day After Tomorrow, and one of my all time favs, Stargate. Check out the teaser below and let me know what you think.

The film is slated for a mid July 2009 release. Another summer blockbuster? I am sure we will see sooner than later.

If you haven’t heard of Hancock, well you are missing out on what I think will be a sleeper hit of the summer. With Will Smith as Hancock, a drunk superhero, this movie is bound to be a hit. Its full of humor, action, Will Smith and more. What more can you ask for? Smith is well known as a summer blockbuster engineer and definitely is capable of bring in the audiences. Sleeper hit guaranteed!

Here is the spot that was broadcast on American Idol last night.