BLU-RAY REVIEW: ROBIN HOOD

Great review, you basically sum up all my own thoughts on the film. I've seen ROBINHOOD and have not yet bothered to post about it. When I finished the film and discovered I'd seen the TC instead of the DC, I didn't even bother to go back and view the scenes I'd missed out on. For someone who at age 12 went around YWCA camp telling everyone who would listen that Ridley Scott was her favorite director, I'm kind of stunned that I find myself in the year 2010 loathing RH as much as I do. It's terrible leaden shit, lacking any sense of charm or adventure. I have a well founded reputation as a supporter of historical accuracy in film, but there is no reason based in history that I can conceive of that would explain away the fact that Crowe's Robinhood is charmless and devoid of charisma

The story ends right where it should have begun, and we're left with a whole movie of Robin sulking and virtually no forest merriment or good natured thievery.

The film is colorless, bland, and ugly. The middle ages were dank and unhealthy, but the forests were at least primordial and lush, and you get none of that vibrant color in this film. The end credit animated sequence is lovely and the best part of the whole thing, when all is said and done

As to your other point that Scott should do TV.... I just finished up PILLARS OF THE EARTH, a STARZ miniseries that's about much the same thing RH is. Even better, the opening credits for the show feature the same painterly impressionistic animation style from RH's end credits. Turns out the show is a SCOTT FREE production. It's not great (limited budget hurts it, and it could have been a bit longer to do justice to the different stories), but it's better than ROBIN HOOD

EDIT: For what it's worth, I think BODY OF LIES is a kick butt thriller.

I will always give this film a pass because it manages to include Eleanor of Aquitaine and William Marshall and random lost boys on ponies.

But the fact that they try to sign the Magna Carta before Richard is even cold in the ground is really irritating.