When faced with a much-anticipated Blockbuster, one needs to be prepared. Especially when it's directed by Ridley Scott, a director who seems to have nothing new to say for a long, long time. Yet, if curiosity bites, if the hope that yet another interesting subject hasn't been thrown to the dogs is still alive, it's right to arm oneself with courage and head to the cinema. Again, you just need to be ready.
Well, I was more than ready, but even the most steadfast preparation is useless in the face of the travesty presented to us this time around.
The valiant archer Robin Longstride returns from the Holy Land via France, losing his good king along the way. On the return journey, he stumbles upon the shady intrigues of those French buccaneers, brings the English crown back home under a false name, and gets "adopted" by an old blind man, to whom he announces the premature demise of his son without causing the slightest disturbance, only for him to die in a pathetic finale, increasing our hatred for the villain of the moment. The painful minutes towards the coveted closing credits will be filled with the daring exploits of good Robin, who, with his great education as an orphan since the age of six, will convince John Lackland to sign the Magna Carta through sheer rhetoric and will lead the reunited English army in the famous battle that thwarted the well-known French invasion of England in the 13th century. He will be aided in this by the usual caricatures that serve as supporting characters, such as the strongman, the cunning one, and the warrior woman.
It's pointless to mention inaccuracies and various licenses at both the historical level and minimal plausibility, after all, dozens of good adventure films with a historical background are full of them. So let's turn a blind eye to medieval landing ships that are wooden copies of those seen in "Saving Private Ryan," to Welsh longbows used inches away from enemies, to monks and women in armor, to children charging on horseback, to plebeian soldiers who know how to ride perfectly and are master swordsmen. Let's overlook all this.
Many good films have been born by revolutionizing the theme from which they were derived. So, let's accept a Robin Hood son of the famous stonemason author of the Magna Carta draft (whatever). A Robin Hood who presumably, from what one can gather from the end of the film, starts being an outlaw when the Lionheart has been six feet under for a while, and whose redemption is for someone unknown. Let's accept a Robin who is a great speaker and undisputed supreme commander of the English army. Let's accept even this.
The fact that all these absurdities are, however, blended into a 150-minute film that put to sleep three, I say three, times those who accompanied me to the theater, thanks to a pompous plot, predictable and full of glaring holes filled with solutions at the edge of tolerability, as well as painfully slow-motion scenes and borrowed ideas from every film released over the past fifty years, honestly will be less easily overlooked.
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By Jimmie Dimmick
I expected curly-haired Little John armed with a club and he wasn’t there.
Well done, but the ending coincides with the moment you say, 'ok, here comes the good part.'