May 6, 2010. Copyright 2010, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Robin Hood returns -- again
By Joanna Griffin

LONDON, May 6, Graphic News:  Does the world really need another film about Robin Hood? Director Ridley Scott and his star Russell Crowe are aiming to prove that there is yet more cinematic life in the expert archer of Nottingham Forest who has been ingrained in Britain’s national psyche since the 13th century. Unusually for a Hollywood blockbuster, their version, entitled simply Robin Hood, will open the Cannes film festival on May 12.
 
Appropriately enough, the making of the movie has itself become the stuff of legend: since production began in 2007 script rewrites, injuries on set and numerous setbacks have all threatened to derail the pair’s fifth collaboration. Their more recent joint efforts have not been as successful as their award-laden Gladiator, for which Crowe won an Oscar as Maximus, the Roman general bent on avenging the murder of his family.
 
Crowe has warned film fans not to expect a hero in the mould of Maximus, but his Robin will be more rugged and swashbuckling than earlier incarnations of the English outlaw by actors ranging from Douglas Fairbanks (1922) to Kevin Costner (1991).
 
At the end of the 12th century, Sir Robin Longstride, the Earl of Huntingdon (Crowe), returns to his village in England after fighting for King Richard I in the Third Crusade. When he discovers that the local sheriff (Matthew McFayden) has imposed a despotic regime on the local people, he sets about winning their freedom. Along the way, of course, he falls in love with feisty Maid Marian (fellow Aussie Cate Blanchett).
 
Nothing too unusual there, but Crowe’s Robin (the film was first entitled Nottingham) is less the humble amateur making merry and roasting pigs in the greenwood than a hard-drinking war veteran who takes time out of soldiering to lead an uprising. As such, he is set within a broader historical context: the Magna Carta is being forged and a French invasion is on the horizon. The battles are bloodier this time, and nimble arrows are far from the only weapons (Hollywood heroes are required to think big).
 
Whatever the size of the budget -- in this case, around $130 million -- no locations can be more ideal for the Robin Hood tale than rain-sodden Wales and leafy Surrey, where the film was shot. Scholars still argue over the true origins of the Robin Hood myth, but movie fans are more likely to squabble over how the film sizes up to Gladiator.
 
With a climatic battle scene featuring hundreds on horseback, Oscar-winning actors (William Hurt and Vanessa Redgrave are also on the cast list), and a subject of such enduring popularity, Ridley Scott is surely on target to hit the bulls-eye -- even if Crowe doesn’t wear tights.
/ENDS