But so what? In for a penny, in for a pound. After the death of Richard, Robin Hood raises, arms and fields an army to repel a French army as it lands on an English beach in wooden craft that look uncannily like World War II troop carriers at Normandy. His men, wielding broadswords, backed by archers, protected from enemy arrows by their shields, engage the enemy in a last act devoted almost entirely to nonstop CGI and stunt carnage in which warriors clash in confused alarms and excursions, and Russell Crowe frequently appears in the foreground to whack somebody.
Subsequently, apparently, Robin pensioned his militia and retired to Sherwood Forest to play tag with Friar Tuck. That's my best guess; at the end the film informs us, “and so the legend begins,” leaving us with the impression we walked in early.
Ah, you say, but what of Maid Marion? In this telling, Marion (Cate Blanchett) is not a maid but a widow, and not a merry one. At one point she threatens to unman Robin with her dagger, which is unlike the Maid Marions I've known and loved. Blanchett plays the role with great class and breeding, which is all wrong, I think. She's the kind of woman who would always be asking Robin, “Why do you let that smelly so-called friar hang around you like a fanboy?”
If you listen closely to the movie's commercials, you may hear of a royal edict being issue against “Robin of the Hood.” A hood, in medieval English, was of course a wood or forest — a point that may be lost on many of the commercial's viewers.
“Robin Hood” is a high-tech and well made violent action picture using the name of Robin Hood for no better reason than that it's an established brand not protected by copyright. I cannot discover any sincere interest on the part of Scott, Crowe or the writer Brian Helgeland in any previous version of Robin Hood. Their Robin is another weary retread of the muscular macho slaughterers who with interchangeable names stand at the center of one overwrought bloodbath after another.
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