On Debunking Myths in Robin Hood

There has been a lot of talk around the latest reimagining of the Robin Hood story and how it abandons the common myth in favour of a more realistic approach. This is dangerous territory to negotiate when it comes to figures so entrenched in mythology that every report of their lives is contested from some angle.

Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood begins well, establishing Robin as an archer in Richard the Lionheart’s crusade and giving him reason to arrive in Nottingham. It is here the film begins to feel strained. An unconvincing deception attempts to reassert the belief around the Locksley name familiar from Robin Hood Prince of Thieves (1991). This in turn leads to a romance between Russell Crowe’s Robin and Cate Blanchett’s Marion that lacks chemistry, or any spark at all. A shame considering both are great, versatile actors. Familiar characters arrive in familiar guises (the alcohol loving Friar Tuck, the deceptive King John) and this effort to establish an authority on the Robin Hood myth starts to borrow more and more from the very films that reinforced our impressions, right or wrong, of the outlaw.

The principal difference lies in the lack of robbing from the rich to give to the poor by replacing what in the past films is an actual trait with a more philosophical approach. There may be very little actual robbing, but through his actions, Robin defends the poor by fighting against the imposing army of the wealthy and powerful. Although it is suggested that Robin will become the very mythological character we have always imagined him to be.

Through such instances the film neither embraces the myth nor abandons it enough to create an identity of its own. Instead, a sense of familiarity creeps over the film the longer it continues. Same players, different game. Robin Hood is neither as enjoyable nor as rousing as Prince of Thieves, which successfully balanced many of the themes Scott employs (bloody crusades, land taxes, tyrannical ruler) with the myth that has endured for so long. Robin Hood attempts to do for this myth what Antoine Fuqua attempted for King Arthur (2004), but the same is true here as it was for Arthur and his Knights; the myth is more fun.