SCREENINGS
& MEANINGS
By
Gerald Schmitz
For
a prequel, Robin is getting thick around the middle
Robin Hood
(UK/US 2010)
“And so the legend
begins.” And so ends nearly two-and-a-half hours of Sir Ridley
Scott's (no relation to Walter) screen-filling backstory Robin Hood,
an obvious prequel setting us up for more reinvented costume drama down
the forest path. It might have been called Robin Hood Begins. After
all, Batman had a Robin too, if no merry men.
I love a good medieval romp.
I still remember thrilling to Ivanhoe as a kid. Plus I really wanted
to like this movie. The trailers for it looked terrific. It opened the
prestigious Cannes film festival on May 12 before immediately going
into wide global release. The signs were promising. So why does it turn
out to be a great big bloody mess?
The 72-year-old Scott, working
from a half-serious, half-clever script by Brian Helgeland (Green Zone,
A Knight's Tale), seems enamoured of epic excess. Unfortunately, the
steely single-minded intensity that worked for him and his go-to Aussie
star Russell Crowe (Robin Hood) in Gladiator has given way to an overblown
mish-mash of storylines adding a veneer of historicity to the swords
and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Let's see, the year is 1199
and King Richard Coeur de Lion (the Lionheart) is laying siege to Châlus
castle in France on his way home to England from the Third Crusade.
There's lots of mud, mayhem, battering rams, showers of arrows, vats
of boiling oil and assorted fun and games. Better actually than in Scott's
overwrought Crusader movie Kingdom of Heaven. In the midst of it all,
valiant Saxon archer and part-time hustler Robin Longstride gets roughly
acquainted with Little John, Will Scarlet and Allan A'Dayle (played
by Alan Doyle of the Canadian Celtic rock band Great Big Sea). When
Robin comes to the attention of King Richard (a rather campy Danny Huston),
he speaks truth to power about the ignominy of the slaughter of thousands
of Muslim prisoners. For that Robin and his trio of mates end up in
the stocks when Richard takes a lucky-strike arrow in the neck and expires
on the battlefield.
Set free, the gang of four
races for the coast to beat the rush back to England. Meanwhile, a group
of knights carrying Richard's crown are ambushed by the treacherous
bald-headed French-speaking Godfrey, who has befriended Richard's ambitious
adulterous brother Prince John at the same time as he is conspiring
a hostile takeover with King Philip of France.
Coming upon the fallen knights,
a dying Sir John Loxley appeals to Robin to take his sword, on which
is inscribed “Rise and rise again until lambs become lions,”
back to his father Sir Walter in Nottingham. Robin swears to do it.
More luck. Not only do they recover the king's horse and crown, they
get to dress up in chainmail armour and catch a royal ship across the
channel as pretend knights. Robin goes one better, assuming the identity
of Sir John. There's a grand procession up the Thames. The grieving
mother Eleanor of Aquitaine receives the crown from Robin's hands, whereupon
her randy son is promptly crowned King John and sets about doing God's
work of pleasing himself.
During the choppy channel
crossing, Alan Doyle's role becomes apparent as he breaks out in spirited
minstrel song. I half expected a chorus of “Aye's the bye”
to follow. A couple more times we get these musical reels for relief,
like a forerunner of a maritime kitchen party, to lighten the mood of
struggle and strife. Recall that another Canadian rocker Bryan Adams
scored a huge hit with “Everything I do” as the emotive
theme song of the 1991 Kevin Costner version Robin Hood: The Prince
of Thieves, which was probably the most memorable thing about that fanciful
failure.
Did I mention respected character
actor William Hurt as William Marshall? He plays the chancellor who
gets sacked by King John in favour of Godfrey and has a couple more
minutes of screen time later on. Not that it serves much purpose. An
extra could have done the job.
Nottingham turns out to be
a grim place, barely held together by the stoic Marion Loxley (Aussie
star Cate Blanchett, best known for her 16th century queenly role in
Elizabeth) who keeps the castle with her aged blind father (screen legend
Max von Sydow giving a creditable performance). The greenwood of Sherwood
forest is overrun by orphaned feral boys who pilfer their supplies.
The church is no help as their precious seed grain is to be sent to
the bishop of York, though the beekeeping mead-loving Friar Tuck will
later join the fray to rectify that. Then there's having to fend off
the intrusions of the lecherous sheriff of Nottingham. What's a good
woman to do?
In rides Robin, alias Sir
John, to the rescue. He occasionally wears a cowl-like hood to escape
closer inspection and detection. Marion hardly has a chance to adjust
to widowhood when patriarch Sir Walter decides the noble ruse should
continue in the interests of holding on to the family castle while protecting
the shire. Of course Marion initially guards her virtue before falling
under Robin's spell. She even becomes his comrade in arms after Robin
and the rebellious barons reach a pact with King John and sally forth
to repulse an armada of French invaders on what looks like the beaches
of Dover. The landing craft evoke a sort of 13th century foretaste of
D-Day in reverse. The bloody French never get off the beach though,
and Godfrey gets a Robin's arrow in the neck for his troubles.
Actually, Robin wields a sword more than a bow. Sir Walter has brought
back to him a repressed childhood memory of his father's execution for
upholding the rights of honest Englishmen (whose every home is his castle).
As Robin and his boys in the 'hood discover, carved in stone under the
Celtic cross in the town square is the rallying cry “rise and
rise again.” Mystery solved. Indeed, it appears that Robin's martyred
father also wrote the first draft of the Magna Carta and got all the
barons to sign it. Who knew?
Anyway, a second draft hits
the parchment and King John publicly signs it to save his crown from
the French. Forget 1215 and all that. With the enemy retreating back
to the continent, the dishonourable monarch repudiates and burns the
document, declaring war and taxes on his own people by divine right.
Braveheart Robin gets outlaw status instead of a knighthood. The sheriff
figure reappears just long enough to proclaim the edict against “Robin
of the Hood” and gets a sporting arrow between the fingers, the
first no doubt of many to come.
What's wrong with this picture?
High-flown pretension mostly. To put it in Newfoundlandese, it's some
strange. Using historical place names as intertitles can't disguise
that this is mock history as much as any previous version. Some of the
dialogue is just plain groan-inducing, with a modernist twist. That
undercuts the grittier back to the Middle Ages look of the movie, which
I do like.
Recently I watched again
the 1938 Hollywood classic, The Adventures of Robin Hood, in resplendent
early Technicolor and starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland as
Robin and Marion. No dirt under their fingernails, it's almost too courtly.
However, it never aspires to be other than a witty, entertaining pageant
and star vehicle. There's no pre-legend foreplay. Robin wears green
tights and a peaked cap with a feather in it, not a hood, and joy reigns
when he helps King Richard return to restore his realm.
It's nonsense of course,
but great stuff with lots of romantic screen chemistry. Flynn was a
dashing 29 when he played the role; de Havilland 22. Crowe is 46 and
looks it, with a lined face and getting pudgy around the middle. Blanchett,
41 on opening day, is no demure young maiden but a sharp-angled warrior
in her own right. And their story is just beginning?
I guess the part about robbing
the rich and giving to the poor is for next time. Still, messing around
with fables isn't a good percentage move in terms of a coherent narrative.
There's enough spectacle for strong box office returns, though it will
take a lot to recoup a budget estimated at nearly $250 million.
When I saw the movie in a
packed theatre, the audience headed for the exits pronto. Too bad, as
the wonderfully lurid animated sequence accompanying the closing credits
was the best part. Be sure to stay for that if you go. And keep your
expectations low.
Schmitz is a freelance writer based in Ottawa.
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