Robin Hood

> Interview: Mark Strong

Russell Crowe and director Ridley Scott once joined forces to sip French wine and lull us into a stupor with A Good Year, and their latest venture has the whiff of vintage testosterone. It's a re-imagining of Robin Hood; an origin story consciously echoing their first collaboration, Gladiator, as Crowe brings a nation to its knees with sheer machismo. Only, it's not as convincing a display this time around. Scott delivers on spectacle, but our hero is more Mr Nice Guy than Maximus Meridius. He lacks real purpose and the film ends up being a jolly ramble through medieval times.

Fortunately, this Robin Hood is nowhere near as camp and frivolous as Errol Flynn in the '30s, and he isn't as squeaky clean as Kevin Costner's Prince Of Thieves either. Instead, we see the legend born on muddy battlefields as King Richard the Lionheart (a typically bumptious Danny Huston) leads his men back to England after Crusading across the Holy Land. Robin dares tell the Commander in Chief they may have been a little heavy-handed with the Muslims, but Scott is wary of getting mired in a pressing political debate. So, cue the light relief: Robin and chums, in the stocks, not looking so merry.

They strike out on their own after Richard is slayed by French renegades led by the treasonous Godfrey. And just in case you didn't think actor Mark Strong was villainous enough, Robin scars him with an arrow. Apparently, the new King John (Oscar Isaac) doesn't get the symbolism, or very much else. He trusts Godfrey implicitly and reckons the best way to safeguard England is to bleed the peasants dry to fund his defences. This is where Robin discovers his socialist tendencies. He hides out amongst farmers in Nottingham, posing as the husband of Marion Loxley (Cate Blanchett) - killed in action - and steals back grain requisitioned by the Crown.

Crowe gets his chance to do the mandatory puffed-up pep-talk when King John comes looking for men to see off the French. But he sounds more like a politician than a warrior - with a dodgy Midlands accent - insisting the men are repaid with a charter to ensure certain freedoms (the Magna Carta no less). Fair dos, but Robin's attentions are divided. He doesn't have one clear mission to take him from scene one to the final showdown with Godfrey. The drive and urgency that made Gladiator great is missing here. It exists only in moments like the culminating battle on the beaches. It's arrestingly shot, like a medieval Saving Private Ryan, except without the blood and guts. This is war for a Saturday afternoon.

In love, Robin plays just as fair. His would-be nemesis the Sherriff of Nottingham (Matthew Macfadyen) has a small role harassing Marion, but Robin takes a respectful hands-off approach. Initially, he plays house to keep her inheritance from being pilfered by the Crown and Blanchett is typically cool with just a shimmer of vulnerability to hint at the outcome. The more moving relationship is between Robin and Marion's father-in-law (Max von Sydow) who treats this drifter as his own son. It's a shame the merry men (including Kevin Durand and a cheeky Scott Grimes) are sidelined for drunken japes and the occasional skirmish in the forest, because that trivialises the horrors they've lived through. It's as if Scott and Crowe couldn't decide whether to aim for gritty or upbeat and hit slightly wide of both marks.