Robin Hood - A Review

The latest Robin Hood is another Hollywood version of the history/legend of the English anti-villian. No one is truly sure about where fact blurs into fiction when it comes Robin Hood, beyond knowing he proved the theory of gravity when he placed an apple on his son's head and hit it with an arrow from twenty paces. The 2010 Robin Hood takes up the story from the end of The Crusades and carries us to just before he and Maid Marian become foxes that wear clothes and can talk.

Before getting into the body of this review, I just want to say I went to Hoyts to see this film and they charged me $20 for a ticket. And the film isn't even in 3D! It was only showing on the Xtreme Screen which is apparently the reason for the markup on the ticket compared to a normal adult ticket. I asked the cashier what made the Xtreme Screen so extreme and she said "It's a really big screen with state of the art surround sound".

I'm sorry, but I thought the whole point of going to the cinema was a big screen and surround sound? Doesn't having an Xtreme Screen basically discredit every single other cinema in the theatre? Shouldn't the Xtreme Screen be normal price and sessions on every other inferior screen be sold at a discount?

That said, the screen was very big and the action in such clarity that someone in the middle aged couple to the right of us continued to go "ooohhhh" every instance someone took an arrow to the chest or a sword blow to the head right up until the final battle. The movie itself was engaging, with nothing wrong with the pacing, action, acting or storytelling. At times it did seem like they might have blown the budget before they hired enough extras. The only real negative I had about the movie was the American-ness of it all. There were a few goofy one-liners that I don't think work for an international audience, and I'd have preferred some more English humour rather what Ridley Scott finds funny.

That wasn't to great detriment though. My main grievance was the sad appearance of the formulaic American "a bunch of rag-tags and misfits band together to create synergy and forge a win for democracy" overtone for the final quarter of the movie. I'm aware that the Robin Hood legacy involves some degree of anti-clericalism but at times it almost became a bit of a Mel Gibson's The Patriot meets The Mighty Ducks 2 painted over the Robin Hood saga, which helped to slightly unsettle my immersion despite the Xtreme sized screen.

Then again, Ridley Scott. What can you expect? Are you not entertained? I pretty much was.