Robin Hood (Ridley Scott, 2010)

Regardless of whether a reimagining of the legend was called for, an increasingly imaginatively bankrupt Ridley Scott gives us one anyway. To begin with, the transposition of the figure as Robin Longstride, a commoner returning from the Crusades to deliver a fallen knight's sword to his father in Nottingham, the father then pragmatically handing his estate to Robin's keep so that it may stay in his daughter-in-law Marion's hands, at least shows signs of trying to come at the worn-out tale from a fresh angle, even if scene after scene never rises above the pedestrian.
Then it gets worse, much worse, as director and scriptwriter alike lose all sight of all the trademark elements of the myth, and eventually we're headed for a climactic battle against French invaders in wooden versions of WWII landing craft, which is equal parts Henry V without the stirring rhetoric and Hastings with the English winning the day instead. If this came from a historically pick'n'mix American action director it would still not be forgivable, but at least understandable. Coming from Scott, it beggars belief. It's not even as if the blockbuster treatment requires the wedging in of a mass melee. The merry men are consequently hopelessly lost in the fray amongst the extras, as are all the other distinguishing characteristics in the irredeemable mess of a plot. All that remains in the last five minutes is the delivery of the upsetting message that this was just an origin story after all, and that means the impending threat of a sequel.

4/10