The mistake that many film critics and viewers who follow their opinions about Ridley Scott‘s films with real or imaginary historical figures make, in my opinion, is their rigid and inaccurate categorization. The veteran director, who is approaching 90 years old with no signs of slowing down, has as his main goal to create entertainment through action films with historical heroes, not to reveal original perspectives on controversial issues or to educate the audience with accurate information that is in line with what historians today consider to be the truth. History lessons are taught in schools or transmitted in books. We come to the cinema to have fun. If we get emotional, if we learn something new, it is a side effect, not the reason why we bought a ticket to the theater or accessed the streaming service. These remarks apply to ‘Robin Hood‘, the 2010 film by Ridley Scott, the fifth and final (so far) collaboration with Russell Crowe.
The story in the film is very far from the original script from which production began, but that will remain a detail of cinema history. Ridley Scott wanted action first and foremost, and everything we see on screen takes place before the moment when most other novels or films about the hero begin. Robin Hood is a small nobleman who returns from the Crusades in 1199 with King Richard when the king is assassinated. Robin assumes the identity of a higher-ranking nobleman in order to reach London and hand over the crown to Richard’s brother John, the new king. Far from being the outlaw living in the woods that we know from other works, the Robin in the film is a knight involved in the internal English and external battles defending the country against French invasions. He saves the kingdom, the crown and the king himself several times, participates in the preparation of the Magna Carta – the fundamental document of the kingdom of England, but also of Western democracy -, acquires several mortal enemies and wins the heart of Marion, who is not a righteous young lady in the film but a widow fighting for survival in a dangerous world.
The fight scenes take up about a third of the generous duration of the film and I think those who choose to see the film for them will be satisfied. Ridley Scott knows better than many others how to build epic battles of great proportions, with well-defined participants, in which the audience has the feeling that they are there, that they are closely following what is happening and understand where the fate of the clash is heading. Three Academy Awards winners for Best Actor play three of the main roles. Russell Crowe seems to have come straight from the filming of ‘Gladiator’. Cate Blanchett doesn’t have as much material as she usually does, but she seems to have had fun to star in an action movie. William Hurt completes the trio of laureates with a role that makes us painfully remember what a great actor we’ve lost. It’s one of the last films in which Max von Sydow appears, an actor who after over half a century of career reminds us how unfair life is and the juries that have never awarded him an Academy Award. I also liked Oscar Isaac in the role of the treacherous King John. Mark Strong and Léa Seydoux have interesting roles, but they look a little too contemporary (with us) to my taste. It was probably a directorial decision. Robin Hood’s companions appear only sporadically and have practically no role in the story. Perhaps they would have created that empathy, that emotional connection between what we see on the screen and us, those in the room, which is somewhat lacking. The spectators, by the way, did not run in huge crowds to the cinema halls. The film was a commercial failure and, as a result, the second series, which was probably going to depict the legend itself, was never made. But perhaps viewers who first encountered Robin Hood here will be curious to watch the follow-up to the prequel they witnessed. There are enough books and films in which the legend of Robin Hood is told in detail.