Movie-Review: Robin Hood – Directors Cut (verdict:6)
I had not heard a thing about this movie whatsoever until the day that I popped in the BluRay. Of course everybody knows about Robin Hood, and once I saw the title, the director and the actors playing in the movie, I felt like this evening would be a great movie experience... I was wrong...
Right after the first scenes with Russell Crowe I found myself comparing the movie with "Gladiator" (one of my all-time favorites). Not just because of the obvious similarities - being Russel Crowe and Ridley Scott - but the setting and the overall feeling just gave me that Gladiator vibe. The downside to this is that you start comparing both movies right from the start. And this is where it kind of went downhill for me.
Although I'm familiar with the background story of Robin Hood, I kind of felt left behind in terms of the story and character development. It wasn't that the story was difficult in terms of intertwining story lines or incomprehensible dialog, but it was just like they were in a rush and assume the viewer will understand it anyway. It took time to know which characters is who, and I found a moment or two where I thought to myself: "Errr, who's that again?!?". All this combined made me feel a bit disoriented and unable to enjoy the first 30 to 45 minutes of the movie.
Once this feeling settles the story seems to develop into something interesting, but it never quite gets there. They slow down the pace of the movie (why now?) and I never really connected with any of the characters. At some times it actually bored me a bit. A battle kind of spiced things up at times, but I never got that "Wow" and "OMG!" feeling I had with "Gladiator". It all just felt plain and normal. Sort of a "been there, done that" kind of feeling. Maybe Ridley Scott didn't want to lean to much on his Gladiator experience, but if you ask me, he should have done so a lot more than he did! Gladiator is easy to follow, but yet it doesn't bore you at any moment.
So isn't there anything positive about the movie? Well, yes there is. The image is superb! The settings and wide angle shots are really great and absolutely give you a believable impression of how it would be to live in those days. The castles look awesome and grotesque, forests have great detail and feel alive and villages and farms have that authentic look. I can see where they spent their money!
The music score, however, was a disappointing as well. I again compared this to "Gladiator" which has a real great soundtrack (by Hans Zimmer)! The soundtrack in this movie wasn't that noticeable and didn't add anything more than background music to the movie.
Although the movie did entertain me, I was quite relieved when it ended. I surely can see a sequel being made and I could see that it would be a lot more interesting than this movie. Maybe they felt this part was a necessity... An introduction so you won't be confused in the following part(s). But if this was the case, they sure did a poor job...
All in all my final verdict is a 6