Which is to say, it was an example of a movie that is the precise opposite of 1938’s The Adventures of Robin Hood, the verdant Technicolor swashbuckler that, in 80 years of subsequent adaptations, remains the standard against which is measured any appearance of Robin Hood, be it full-length film or cheeky cartoon cameo.Ī collaboration of Old Hollywood’s merriest men and women The figure of Robin Hood has evolved so much over the hundreds of years of storytelling that gave rise to him that it’s foolish to call any one iteration the definitive one.
In the hands of Ridley Scott, and starring Cate Blanchett and freaking Max von Sydow, however, it became a dumb film that culminates in a swordfight on a beach where Robin Hood- the greatest archer ever-fires one arrow. An artifact of why this happened is actually embedded right there in that last link: If you look at the Box Office Mojo link to it, the film was originally to be titled Nottingham, and would reportedly have been from the perspective not of the forest outlaw but of the beleaguered sheriff tasked with hunting him down. The last major studio Robin Hood film, 2010’s Russell Crowe vehicle, was a joyless post- Lord of the Rings slog that reviewed poorly and flopped hard in theaters.