Wading though 'Robin Hood'

"Robin Hood"

Two stars

By Gary Buiso

“Robin Hood” is filmed competently and acted well, but the revisionist tale of the legendary archer ultimately can’t see the Sherwood Forest from the trees.

Director Ridley Scott (“Alien”) crafts a satisfying enough epic, but the film is unnecessarily muddy, wading through dense brush to tell a prequel that is devoid of both originality and merriment.

Russell Crowe plays Robin, the dashing figure of lore who plundered the rich to give to the poor. But Crowe is no dandy like Errol Flynn from the classic 1938 film.

In the 2010 version, Robin Longstride is a blood-soaked commoner fighting alongside the likes of King Richard the Lionheart, returning from the not-so-dandy Crusades. The king takes an arrow to the neck, and Robin is charged with returning his crown to England because the gent initially in charge of the crown, Sir. Robert Loxley, suffers the wrong end of a broadsword.

Loxley beseeches Robin to return his sword to his father, Walter (Max von Sydow), back in Nottingham. There, Robin will meet Loxley Jr.’s brassy widow, Marion (Cate Blanchett), and adopt the identity of her dead hubby, at the request of the elder Loxley, so his daughter-in-law can retain title to the land. She’s skeptical of Robin — “I sleep with a dagger” — but we know the archer will make her quiver soon enough.

Meanwhile, Nottingham is overtaxed by Richard’s successor, King John (Oscar Isaac), whose chancellor Godfrey (Mark Strong) is secretly plotting with the French to overrun the motherland. It’s up to Robin and an assembled band to fight for an ungrateful crown and stump for social justice along the way. “You build a county like you build a cathedral — from the ground up,” he says.

The film’s foil is the script, by Brian Helgeland (“Mystic River”), which is confusing and bogged down by palace politics and indistinguishable battle sequences.

Only in the last minutes of “Robin Hood” is the “legend” born. His cinematic rebirth could have been less painful.

“Robin Hood.” Rated PG-13 for violence including intense sequences of warfare, and some sexual content. 140 minutes. With Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, William Hurt, Mark Strong, Max von Sydow, Oscar Isaac and Danny Huston.

Playing in Brooklyn at Access Digital Theatres - Pavilion Cinema in Park Slope, Downtown at UA Court Street Stadium 12, UA Sheepshead Bay 14, Bay Ridge Alpine Cinemas, and Linden Boulevard Multiplex Cinemas in East New York.