Capsule: "Robin Hood"

ROBIN HOOD EXTREME!!!

Look, the legacy/history/notoriety of Robin Hood is rooted in the fun, folly and fancy free. Robin Hood is material made of laughter and adventure and whistling roosters (perfectly exceptable in the light-hearted Hood universe). It's generally understood fact: The man in the green tunic, with the bow-and-arrow that robs from the rich to feed the poor, is all about whimsy.

But Ridley Scott looked up and said "no."

Hit the gritty remake button! Again!

A lavish wreck of reconstructive means, Ridley Scott's "Robin Hood" is sporadically momentous, showy and one big summer mess. A, freakin' merry, mess.

In short: "Robin Hood" is a spotty re-interpretation of the English legend, wherein Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe, in a pretty flat performance) is an archer who assumes the identity of a dead man from Nottingham. Yes, in any other director's hands, this would be noticeably contrived. In short, Robin fights the French, pisses of the King, figures out his destiny and happens upon the lovely Marion Loxley (Cate Blanchett). Real clever spin on the story fellas. Eyes must roll.

On Target:

- Ridley Scott is self-parodying at this point. With his usual frenetic and high amount of coverage, Scott goes for visuals, as always. But, uh, here it's just muddy and green... Occasionally "Hood" has the photography to compensate for the total hackjob of a screenplay (what would a Scott movie be without an obligatory big battle?). But, Scott's a bit obvious here.

- How in the hell did this cost $237 milly? It's just forest and crowd scenes! There's a total gap between the look and feel of the film (gritty, personal period piece), and the budget (big as "Avatar?"). Here's a dare to Scott on his next film: use only only camera, and avoid battle scenes? Yeesh.

- Lastly, I smell a troubled production based on the sloppy end product. And after reading this article ("How Nottingham Became Robin Hood"), I may be right...

With that, I've already pulled out my superb alternatives: