Ridley Scott's Robin Hood: Gladiator, but boring (Open spoilers)

Cafe Society
1

Last night I watched the new Robin Hood on DVD, and oy vey, was it dull. I’ve read that Scott intended it to be pretty similar to Gladiator, and it was. Except not entertaining. (While I’m sure there are people who didn’t like Gladiator, I’m not one of them. I really enjoy it.)

The really bizarre thing to me is just HOW similar they were. A few notable examples, with my opinions as to how Robin Hood stacked up in comparison:

Both start out with a king at war in a foreign land, Gladiator’s Marcus Aurelius in Germany (I think?) and Hood’s Richard Lionheart in France. And in both Russell Crowe is shown to be a good soldier and an honest man. Robin Hood Fail #1: In Gladiator, Crowe’s soldiering and honesty get him promoted to Caesar. In Robin Hood, the pissy king locks him up for the same thing.

Both kings are killed at the site of the final battle. Robin Hood Fail #2: Aurelius was murdered in a powerfully emotional scene by his own son. John was killed by a cook with a lucky arrow. They were already setting up that he would be assassinated by Godfrey, but he didn’t even get the chance. A cook?!

In both movies Crowe’s character has to escape capture. Robin Hood Fail #3: Gladiator’s Maximus has to take out two or three armed soldiers starting out with his wrists bound, so that he can try to race home to save his family. Hood escapes when a puppy-eyed soldier knocks the pins out of his rack and they run away.

Both of Crowe’s characters take on new identities, and he uses them to achieve a goal. Robin Hood Fail #4: Maximus is sold as a slave for the gladiator contests, and must fight for his life to try to regain his freedom and avenge his family. Robin is forced to pretend to be … the local rich guy? 'Cause he has nowhere else to go, apparently, and hey, he gets Cate Blanchett thrown into the deal, too.

Both movies feature a new king lacking in all the standard kingly virtues. Robin Hood Fail #5: Gladiator’s Commodus is a genuinely complicated character, with arrogance, bitterness, disappointment, wanting to be loved and respected by both his father and the people of Rome and unable to achieve any of it. Robin Hood’s King John is apparently mostly just a playboy who wanted to be king. (I will admit he did step up to the plate in the final battle, but only to prove he was as brave as his brother.)

The supporting cast leaves a lot to be desired in Hood as well. Gladiator had the aging ex-gladiator Proximo, the mincing senator Gracchus, Connie Nielsen’s torn and fearful Lucilla, and the boy Lucius adding to the tension, and to top them all Richard Harris as Marcus Aurelius. Robin Hood’s character’s were almost completely forgettable: The Merry Men were completely interchangeable (only Little John stood out at all, and that only because Kevin Durand is just so weird), Mark Addy was almost unrecognizable as Friar Tuck and criminally underused, and Marion Loxley could have been acted by anyone and it wouldn’t have made any difference. Russell Crowe was exactly the same guy, except in Hood he seemed almost bored. The only two cast members who pulled their weight were Max von Sydow as Max von Sydow, and Mark Strong as Godfrey, who was only interesting because Strong is a very charismatic actor. Otherwise his character was just “ambitious soldier guy.”

In short, Gladiator = fun period epic with interesting characters and cool scenery. Robin Hood = dull period wanna-be epic with dirt and a few arrows, and very little point.

2

Here is a fascinating tale of what the Robin Hood movie was SUPPOSED to be.
Linkety.

3

Thanks for the info on the original script. I just watched this movie over the weekend, and wow, was it terrible.

What was up with the Lost Boys? It was bad enough that they existed without much explanation as to why, or relevance to the plot, but when they joined in the battle at the end, riding on all their ponies, led by Marian, yikes! I laughed out loud. Where did all the ponies come from? How did the Lost Boys learn to fight as cavalry? Why did they?

Which invasion by the French was that supposed to be? Was it supposed to look exactly like the D-Day invasion? I kept looking for Tom Hanks among the French. Who knew you could defeat ground forces with only a few arrow volleys and cavalry?

4

And their names are also euphemisms for toilets.*

*I always heard Commodus as a Latinification of commode.

5

Haven’t seen the movie yet, but I suspect it is loosely based on Crown Prince Louis’ ( future Louis VIII ) bid to take the throne of England with the backing of a substantial chunk of the England’s Anglo-French nobility who were in rebellion against John. It was in fact probably the English monarchy’s most dangerous little moment. It is likely that only John’s convenient death before Louis had had time to fully consolidate his power saved the state, as most of the nobility switched back to supporting the boy-king Henry III who, young and malleable, represented a more attractive candidate than Louis.

However all this happened in 1216-1217 at the end of John’s reign and Richard died in 1199, so I’m going to guess the timeline doesn’t match up that well ;).

6

Hmm, almost makes me want to open a CS thread to get opinions on movies that would be awesome if told from a unique POV. Turn the conventional antagonist into the protagonist.

7

I didn’t like it either. And I thought Cate Blanchett looked awful. I was being facetiously catty but really, she is supposed to be MAID marion, pretty and young and lovely, and not ‘mature’, to put it politely.

And the editing was really bad, I felt. It felt like a 3 hour movie desperately smooshed down, so we lost a lot of stuff.

8

How about The Miracle Worker as seen & heard by Hellen?

9

“Put him in the Tower of London. Make him part of the tour!”

10

You win! :smiley:

11

I didn’t see the movie, but I read the blog article linked to by Fried Dough Ho. The blog article is saying that sometimes directors ruin potentially good scripts, and the producer should put his foot down. That screenwriter seems to have a bone to pick with directors, and is saying that this is mostly a director’s fault. He probably knows more about the business than I do, but I’m sure that scripts being ruined can happen because of interference by a movie star or a producer just as easily.

12

Can’t really fault the filmmakers for that. Commodus and John were historical characters and those were their real names.

Maximus Decimus Meridius, on the other hand, is a fictional name. The guy who actually killed Commodus was named Narcissus. In the original script, the lead character was named Narcissus Meridas. But the historical Narcissus was neither a soldier or a gladiator so apparently the filmmakers decided they might as well give the character a new name as well.

13

I dunno bout Blanchett not being a good Marion. Basically she felt right for the role to me, I would have had no problems with someone like Kiera Knightly filling the role either , but that would have been because she is Kiera Knightly or Emma Tompson for that matter, the same way.

I guess they might have wanted a counter point to that French Queen of Johns, young and pretty and sort of cross eyed.

Declan

14

I loved how King Richard was portrayed as a completely self-absorbed boob. John came off much more sympathetic that Claude Rains, but still quite a bit of a prick. I hated the little boys on ponies at the battle: shit, this ain’t a Disney flick.

15

As I always say, I’d like to know Kiera Knightly.

My wife is really, really tired of that joke.

16

FlyingDragonFan, I really like and agree with your comparison to Gladiator. Spot on. I saw both movies on the big screen within a month of each other, and the Roman flick is far, far better. I’d give Robin Hood a B or B- overall, but it does have a good siege scene at the beginning. Cate Blanchett does not look her best - almost haggard, I thought (Keira Knightley would’ve been far better in the role). Sigh. There were a lot of things wrong with the movie. And as terrible as Robin’s accent in the Costner Prince of Thieves movie was, I have to say, that was a much more fun movie than this.

17

Maid Marion should always be Olivia de Havilland. Or Misty Rowe.

18

Great link, thanks very much for sharing.

19

Please do, I’d happily contribute.

(if you do, please notify me :slight_smile: )

20

By coincidence, I just saw this film this past weekend and was thinking of doing a thread on it.

It was just terrible.

Aside from the fact that it’s not really a Robin Hood story, but instead is the Robin Hood origin story, and so barely uses the Sheriff of Nottingham and whatnot… well, even on its own merits it’s hard to discern just why the movie was made. It feels like it was pumped out by Generic Olden Days War Movie For Windows 7.

If in fact the story is true about the script originally being told from the Sheriff of Nottingham’s viewpoint, it’s frankly hard to see how this movie is in any way connected to that script because it’s not about the Robin Hood - Sheriff conflict at all. It’s entirely Robin Hood versus Some Random Villain, played by Mark Strong, whose job it is to play villains. The Sheriff appears only a few times and appears to be a feckless doofus.

The shame is that it seems like they had some good ideas, but none really make it anywhere. King John has a chance to be an interesting character - he’s clearly shown to have been handed the worst job in the world due to his idiot brother’s catastrophic crusade, and has serious and not easily resolved problems to deal with - but instead of being the complex character he could have been he just ends up being an idiot. Robin Hood goes from being just another guy in the army to being a national hero without any discernible arc. Marian is just Strong Female Type 61, appearing in the final battle for absolutely no reason at all. The other characters are nothing. And the final battle is just a colossal fucking mess.