First Hit: Ridley Scott can stage a fine battle with lots of arrows and fighting but what was the point.
The opening scenes have you read parchment paper to set the whole thing up – twice. Often this is not a good sign when we have to read a couple of written documents to know what the point of the story might be. Some films do this well (Star Wars) others don’t.
This film gives Robin Longstride (aka Robin Hood) (played by Russell Crowe) the mantel of not stealing from the rich to give to the poor, but fighting for a king who bankrupts his country financially and morally bankrupts his soldiers. Robin figures this out and leaves the army when their leader dies. He heads back home to England but under the guise of someone else. It just so happens he takes the place of a Knight (Robin Loxely) who is married to Marion Loxely (played by Cate Blanchett).
Her father in-law Sir Walter Loxely (played by Max von Sydow) wants the charade, Robin being his son, to last because when he dies the new King will get all his land in Nottingham and Marion will get nothing. Robin gets involved with defending the new King against the French because the new King was misled by a spy. Robin makes a fine speech, the English win, but the new King goes back on his word so Robin becomes an outlaw.
Crowe is just Crowe. There is nothing compelling about his performance and it looks just like Gladiator but in a new uniform. Blanchett is always good and is one of the reasons I enjoyed some of the film. The other reason was von Sydow who was excellent as Sir Walter. Scott probably makes a lot of money from making war and action films, but quite frankly it is the same thing over and over again and it comes off as old.
Overall: Rent the DVD if you want to watch this, because it certainly isn’t worth the price of admission.