Ridley Scott's Robin Hood - hate or anticipate here

Richard I is widely considered one of the worst kings of all time btw

it's because he wasted the half of his rule not spent in the crusades by interrupting other people's weddings and insisting on kissing the bride

okay this was way more rousing than it should have been. I think Matchstick Men was the only thing i've moderately liked in the last 18 years or so. This one had more of a classical feel than i was expecting, and only 2 scenes with those stupid blue filters, which he weirdly abandoned for most nighttime scenes. Also his bonecrunching 30fps close-up battle scenes, usually about the worst part of his films, were for the most part pretty short, or even montages, as if he wasn't even really interested in that. Brian Helgeland made the political intrigue relatively intriguing and a whole bunch of decisions (SPOILER - the king leading the battle charge, Kate and the kids showing up w/o fanfare) kept winning me over.

Didn't know the whole thing was an origin story, thought it would be like Batman Begins with like half origin story, half in-character, so i started getting pissed for a little while that they were just fucking around with the title like Alice in Wonderland, also King John's transformation at the very end was pretty rushed and really sold his arc short. Otherwise i think i'm actually psyched for a sequel?

bonecrunching 30fps close-up battle scenes

yeah nobody has used those interestingly, even hurt locker (which i think was more like 3,000fps) used them in a way that felt clichéd to me.

Just saw this tonight and I was impressed. Story was engaging, action was tight and brutal without going for gore-porn, loved the decision to make it an origin story...and there were no corny notes to it. Nothing felt hamfisted, or overblown. Would see it again for sure. Loved Cate as Marion, loved the chemistry with her & Rusty. Wouldve liked more abt the lost boys...and yeah, Johns arc was a bit too swift at the end there.

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/05/robin_hood_script_russell_crow.html

this is good reporting

not sure t-stoppz earned his dough tbqh

The first version sounds interesting.

that role reversal thing is a well-worn idea surely? not that i can think of any examples right now.

Scott told a reporter that the original premise was “fucking ridiculous” and that “you’d end up spending 80% of the publicity budget explaining why it was Nottingham and not just Robin Hood.”

what a disaster for the publicity budget.

Here's an idea - a modern day 'Nottingham' with Robin Hood based on this fellow (when he gets out of prison).

Wasn't into it at all. Blanchett was good, the French castle siege was great, the production design and cinematography were obviously great, other than that it felt padded, talky and slow. Crowe didn't engage me in the slightest, and what the hell was his accent supposed to be? It switched between RP, Irish and, mysteriously, Scouse. And, fucking hell, it's a Robin Hood film, I want him to fire more than three arrows!

well to be fair 2 of those 3 arrows were in the last couple minutes of the film where he actually becomes Robin Hood. And this was still miles better than American Gangster or the Ornaldo Bloomps Crusades movie.

though all these bitches complaining about the accents... what did 12th century brits sound like? iirc the nobs all spoke french anyway.

Wouldn't bother me if Russel stuck to one accent! Randomly flipping between approximations of various regional accents and then throwing in a Father to a Murdered Son growl every now and then is just distracting.

this was by no means as bad as i was fearing. mix of completely ridic melodramatic plotting with quite variegated style (typical lightly-psuedo-documentary/slow-mo/zoom-heavy craziness for action scenes, wide framings and crane shots for "lyrical"/emotional interludes, etc.) that makes it totally middle-of-the-road but in an intelligent-enough way.

i only noticed crowe's fluctuating accents two or three times.

also where i have i seen the french would-be queen before? she looked familiar.

by the way i think once you accept the melodramatic contrivances (e.g. you'd think britain had like 20 people in it the way people keep running into each other/knowing each other's fathers/etc.) it's plenty enjoyable. i think some of the critics were distracted by the film's really pathetic attempts to make this thing gritty and/or "meaningful" and thus judged it by a standard that doesn't fairly apply. scott and crowe are partly to blame for that. they both sound like assholes based on all the press btw.

in other words, three solid stars.

French queen = Lea Seydoux. I just imdb'd her, she was one of the cute LaPadite sisters in the Inglourious Basterds opening.

aha! i KNEW it.