Robin of the Hood

Woo, three posts in one night. Such are the results of having lots of time on your hands where the only thing you can do is sit still with your head tilted back and wait.

So tonight Steve and I went to go see the new Robin Hood movie that came out starring Russell Crowe. I'm kinda a Russell Crowe fan. He definitely ranks near the top of my list of "Most Awesomest Actor Dudes Ever". Needless to say I was excited to see the movie.

In many ways, it delivered. It didn't exactly follow the lore of many of the other Robin Hood stories. Of course, the original (namely, everyone is a jerk and then everyone dies) is hardly a charming story. And there have been so many off shoots and reinterpretations that I hardly held it against the director for changing and reinventing the characters a little bit. And if he changed many of the events, many of the characters shared the same quirks as previous renditions. And of course, Robin Hood was a pro archer.

If you didn't gripe about the differences between this plot and others, the movies was really quite enjoyable. I only really had two gripes with this movie, but I've had the same grips with other movies, so I think it might just be a trend in the way movies are being made these days. Allow me to elaborate.

The first was Prince John. Prince John has never really been portrayed as a good sort of guy. This time around, though, he was a spineless cretin kind of guy. Power hungry, pathetic, and the most worthless leader ever seen. While I can appreciate having a character who is written to be weak, Prince John made it seem as though he was still a bratty teenager at best. His childishness didn't really seem to fit with his character. In fact, it wasn't even his childishness that got to me. It was that instead of being pathetic, he was just straight up laughable. I'm just not a fan of having bad guys who are laughable or who are supposed to be comic relief. Bad guys don't always need capes and cowls, but if all I want to do is laugh at them, they aren't convincing.

The only other part that pulled me out of the movie for a bit was a story thread regarding Robin Hood's father, who was apparently a reformist and philosopher who died for his beliefs. Liberty and power to the people, etc. For a few minutes of the movie, Robin Hood seems to take up the banner and become William Wallace. In a way, Robin Hood was a freedom fighter too, but the plot thread was just to underdeveloped to make much sense where it was and just kind of left me scratching me head.

A lot of movies try to throw in little speeches about freedom and liberty these days, a habit I find annoying. Sometimes it works and it's incredibly powerful, but just saying "freedom is great!" doesn't do it, especially when it lacks context. Show me the depth of this person's beliefs by their actions and spare me the canned speech on liberty and freedom. I've heard it before, and I don't need to hear it again.

Despite those two things, though, I really did enjoy Robin Hood. I thought Both Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett (the actress who played Marion Loxley and the same one who played Galadriel in LOTR) did great jobs in their roles. The romance between Robin Hood and Marion Loxley was especially well done. Above all, I appreciated the fact that they didn't just pile into bed the moment they realized they loved each other. Most movies do that so quickly that I've just begun assuming it's a given. But I was pleasantly surprised by the slow growth of their love and respect for each other and by the way it didn't instantly culminate into animalistic rutting.

Final review - well worth seeing. If you have the chance, I wouldn't pass it up.