Robin Hood (2010)

Posted May 24, 2012 by Speed - 0 comments

After Richard the Lionheart dies during a final attack in France after the Crusades, Robin Longstride and his friends head back to England only to stumble upon Godfrey and French soldiers who’ve ambushed English knights returning the crown. They manage to chase away Godfrey and his men but find out that they’re too late to save the knights under the lead of Robin of Loxley. With his last words, the dying knight requests his sword to be returned to his father Walther in Nottingham, which Longstride promises.

After returning the crown to England, impersonating the knights that died, Robin and his friends head to Nottingham where Sir Walther asks him to impersonate his dead son to prevent his land from being confiscated by the crown.

Meanwhile, Godfrey is plotting against the newly appointed but weak King John and starts invading towns with a bunch of French soldiers under the pretext of collecting Royal taxes. With towns getting overrun, opposition against John is growing which is exatly Godfrey’s plan as it will fascilitate a French invasion, but what nobody took into account is that Robin may have an ace up his sleeve.

Sound and Vision:
Universal delivers a near reference quality transfer here. The amount of detail is striking, the contrast is spot on and the colors which come in an earth tones are vivid and cinematic.

We get an equally impressive DTS-HD soundtrack with almost constant use of the surround speakers, perfect placement and crystal clear dialogues. With the lower frequencies also coming up strong when necessary, we can only conclude this is a track that’s exemplary.

Extras:
- Director’s Notebook
- Rise and Rise Again: Making Ridley Scott’s ‘Robin Hood’
- The Art of Nottingham
- Deleted Scenes

An interactive feature that displays behind-the-scenes footage while you’re watching the Theatrical version, an in-depth Making Of and an interactive gallery of production stills and storyboard comparisons. Nice stuff.

Conclusion:
Those that think they’re in for a retelling of the classic Robin Hood story can forget it. Ridley Scott has taken the original, taken it apart, kept a few basics here and there, added a few other events from around the same period in time, and mashed everything together again. The result is a rather surprising Robin Hood that focuses less on the Sheriff of Nottingham and the love story between Robin and Lady Mariann, but more on… well, a lot of things combined together actually.

And that’s a bit where this movie kinda fails. Instead of being focused, Scott tries to put so many things together that the viewer expecting to see a classic (and rather simple) story suddenly sees something that resembles a prelude to that like it’s a reworked version of Gladiator. In fact, that’s what bothered me the most about this film. You just can’t help but constantly think you’re watch Gladiator in Medieval times with knights instead of Romans and an ending that makes the movie seem unfinished. But where some make you urge for a sequel, this one doesn’t.

All in all, Robin Hood isn’t a bad movie, but maybe they shouldn’t have named it after a character that’s so well-known while the story goes in such great lengths to tell something different.

Universal’s blu-ray release on the other hand is spot on. It’s got great image and sound quality, and also the extras are worth checking out. Technically this is a superb piece of work.

FlashForward – The Complete Series Brooklyn’s Finest