Robin Hood

**1/2 stars

In Robin Hood’s case, he should be honored that Sir Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe, and company would tell his life story. In Robin Hood the movie’s case, consider itself lucky that it’s one of the only few offerings this summer that is neither 3-D or a sequel. Because while it is an adaptation of a famous story, the sole compliment I can give is that the good manages to outweigh the bad. Like Iron Man 2, I guess in this day and age it’s the best you can hope for.

And that’s too bad, considering the enormous talent behind this $200 million epic. Russell Crowe is in full Gladiator mode as the legendary hero, shuffling between accents that tend to remind the audience of the genre’s glory days. The film begins in the crusades, as Robin and his mismatched group of musketeers fight with King Richard. After the King’s death, he takes to himself to find his own destiny. He heads off to Nottingham to discover his family history and to rediscover whatever life he has left.

Enter Maid Marian, played with witty experience by Cate Blanchett. However, this is not the Maid Marian we’ve come to know. Blanchett plays her as if she belongs in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. While it’s certainly a refreshing characteristic over a helpless woman, it would have been to nice to have more sensibility to the lead character’s relationship, rather than continuously acting all noble, noble, noble.

This Robin Hood is more of a prequel than an origin story, and more of a gritty action picture than a soaring epic. I suspect audiences will leave the theater wondering if they saw a version of Robin Hood or a generic Crusade epic from the director of Gladiator. This Robin Hood hardly steals from the rich and gives to the poor, and relies heavily on action sequences. I never hated Robin Hood. In fact, I rather enjoyed it. But in order to be called an accomplishment, the film is missing a key attribute: memorable.