Ridley Scott’s 2010 work is undoubtedly the most perplexing Robin Hood film ever made (even if you count “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” among them), which, after a decently executed opening battle scene, devolves into a bizarre, multi-stranded mess:
Warning, serious spoilers ahead! But don’t worry about it!
Robin Hood, the SIMPLE ARCHER, under the alias Sir Loxley, casually hands over King Richard’s crown to the Queen Mother (but only by accident, as he gets wasted with his buddies while boating and forgets to hightail).
After that, Robin Hood, the SIMPLE ARCHER under the alias Sir Loxley, infiltrates the Loxley family, and the story here turns into “The Taming of the Shrew” with the understandably hesitant Lady Marion (who, by the way, spends her free time farming with the peasants and feels an irresistible urge to personally rescue the peasants’ goats from the swamp).
Secretly, Robin Hood, the SIMPLE ARCHER, in the DEAD OF NIGHT, plants the grain extorted from Friar Tuck.
The starving village kids (aged 7 to 14) had already moved into Sherwood Forest and self-taught themselves the mysterious art of ninjutsu. They use this mystical method to raid their own village at night and have their elite squad of 5- to 7-year-olds capture Robin Hood hunting in the forest. The beefed-up, terribly HEAVY Robin is, for an unknown reason, transported to their camp Ewok-style. Lucky for him, Lady Marion, the kids’ bestie, happens to be hanging out with them and saves him.
Robin Hood’s soldier buddies serve as a constant source of humor throughout the film, partying without end in STARVING Nottingham. These cheerful, IRRESISTIBLY humorous scenes also feature the film’s most hilarious, usually sexually charged jokes. See “Little” John.
Now, all these are already wonderful things in themselves, but the damn French keep stealing the spotlight from Robin. Two hundred frog-eaters—disguised as English tax collectors—ride around North Anglia trying to stir up the country against the English king. Their cunning plan succeeds because no one notices that they can’t speak a word of English and there are FAR FEWER of them than the entire army of North Anglia’s nobles…
At this point in the story, Robin, the SIMPLE ARCHER, who usually approaches events with the cool detachment of an intellectual sage, recalls that his father was a stonemason and a philosopher too who came up with the Magna Carta while plastering. This is really something, thinks Robin Hood, the SIMPLE ARCHER, so he graciously takes FULL control of the operations against the French from King John (who makes President Trump look like a model of character and consistency).
And just as you ponder how the hell to exactly define this outstanding culmination of Ridley Scott’s cinematic art and realize it’s basically a “big-budget trash-movie,” the following things HAVEN’T EVEN happened yet:
The fox-hearted French king hasn’t appeared leading a massive Armada, containing a French version of wooden, D-Day American landing ships, about 800 years ahead of their time. Hell yeah!
The STARVING orphaned children of Sherwood Forest haven’t launched a cavalry charge led by Lady Marion (I told you she’s their buddy!)—because these poor, STARVING village orphans were so forward-thinking that they stored enough war horses in Sherwood Forest for a whole army and apparently trained themselves in cavalry combat, instead of, say, slowly eating up these few hundred robust destriers to no longer be STARVING orphans! But maybe they just love riding horses.
4/10
Robin Hood (2010) (IMDb)
Director: Ridley Scott, Stars: Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett