Movie Review: Robin Hood

This is a hard review for me because there is simply no way I can be fair to the movie.

Much like my review of GI Joe was skewed by the ridiculous accelerator suits and my anticipation for the forthcoming Jonah Hex is shattered by the fundamental shift in his story, the things I heard about Robin Hood proved false.

When the movie was first green-lighted, the rumor was the "twist" to the story was that Robin Hood was also the Sheriff of Nottingham. That would be a fun take on it and center on the best part of the story...Robin and his Merry Men hanging out in the forest, doing good deeds.

What we got was nothing like that. It started on the return from the Crusades, had just a couple of the classic Robin Hood tales, and had the feel more of a "tent pole origin story" than a self-contained movie.

Not that it was devoid of its charms...Ridley Scott has an excellent eye for the camera, he pulled excellent performances from a strong cast of supporting actors, and had a richly developed, nuanced world.

This version owed more to the gritty, violent Kevin Costner Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves version than to the light-hearted Robin Hood cartoon Disney put out, though there were elements of humor to it.

Ultimately, though, I think the movie failed on its own merits.

Instead of a bow-slinging Robin Hood (Russell Crowe) we get one who is more courtier than rough-hewn peasant, who wields a sword more than a bow and, in the climatic sea-battle, wields a battle hammer? What in the world?

This movie simply had too many gaping holes in it;
- why would the wild orphans steal SEED?
- why would they then decide to rescue the towns-folk and join Marian (Cate Blanchett) in battle?
- why would Robin abandon the bows (and how did he do it so quickly) and the sword for that ugly battle-hammer?

I should clarify; I did enjoy the movie. It had several likable characters, an interesting enough plot, was well-paced and had some depth to it.

It simply was not what was expected, and that harmed my personal enjoyment of it. It also felt like an incomplete story.

It is probably worth seeing at a second run theatre or on a Netflix release, but not worth full price admission.

Movie Review:Body of Lies

The previews for Body of Lies (2008) seemed to be built around the conceit that either Roger Ferris (Leonardo DeCaprio) or Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) was a mole in the CIA who was actually working for the terrorists. This assumption of course could not be made by anyone who has read the book it is based on, but that is beside the point.

While action packed, Body  takes a while to hit its stride. Ferris is a knowledgeable Middle East operative who works under Hoffman. Hoffman tends to keep his field operatives in the dark and run multiple operations simultaneously, some of which interfere with each other.

When Ferris tries to bring in an informant, Hoffman refuses. The informant is caught so Ferris kills him so he cannot reveal who Ferris is. Against Hoffman's orders, he and his partner go to raid a safe house. The partner ends up getting killed and Ferris badly hurt. When he recovers he heads to Jordan where he falls for an Iranian nurse named Aisha (Golshifteh Farahani). Meanwhile, the head of Jordanian security named Hani (Mark Strong)  and Ferris try to work together. Repeated interference by Hoffman causes them massive problems. It comes to a head when Hani will not turn over control of his informant inside the terrorist cell to Hoffman. First, however, Hani and Ferris work together on a safe house project.

Together they try to track users of an Al Quaeda splinter group safe house in an attempt to find mastermind terrorist Al-Saleem (Alon Abutbul). When the safe house is burned down they lose their lead. Convinced Ferris knew about the operation Hoffman had ordered that caused the disaster, Hani throws Ferris out of Jordan. 

Ferris concocts a plan to make an innocent architect named Omar Sadiki (Ali Suliman) look like a terrorist mastermind in an attempt to make Al-Saleem reveal himself out of jealousy. The plan works to an extent but Al-Saleem kills Sadiki when he realizes Sadiki was a pawn. 

Sickened by the mounting losses, Ferris is on the edge of quitting when Aisha is captured. He tried to exchange himself for her. As Saleem and his men prepare to torture Ferris to death, Hani makes the last second rescue. 

Sickened by the continued disposal of innocent people by Hoffman's methods, Ferris quits to stay in Jordan with (presumably) Aisha. 

The action in this movie is excellent, the web of deceit often hard to untangle (I deliberately left out a couple of twists that may or may not surprise you) and the various considerations of each character make enough sense to keep you intrigued with the movie beginning to end. If you like action movies, this is a good choice. If you like thrillers, it is a good choice. If you just like good stories with a bit more complexity than the average cinematic fare, this is the right choice. Overall, a very entertaining flick.