Robin of the Hood. West Side. Blood.

Altogether now…

“Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the Glen.
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, with his band of men…”

Hmmm, OK so Ridley Scott’s version of Robin Hood isn’t exactly your typical rob from the rich and give to the poor affair. In fact, it’s how Robert of Locksley becomes Robin Hood, so it ends up being more like A Knight’s Tale meets Gladiator. Granted, both of those are great films, but I wouldn’t say this version of Robin Hood is quite as good as you might imagine from that description.

For starters, it’s too long, too slow, has Russell Crowe (and Cate Blanchett for that matter who I’m not a fan of either) and all manor of similarly beardy characters who will all merge into one big mess of facial hair if you let your mind wander too much. Cate Blanchett doesn’t have a beard though in case you’re wondering.

Then there’s Russell Crowe’s accent. What was that exactly? Scottish? Irish? Northern? Welsh? Other? It seemed to change nearly every scene. If he’d just stuck to Australian it would’ve been strange at first, but at least everyone would’ve become used to it and it wouldn’t have been an issue for long. But I found him changing it randomly throughout was most distracting!

All that said, Robin Hood was still a lot better than I was expecting it would be and there were a few unexpected chuckles. So it’s not all bad.

6/10.