So I really wanted to see this last weekend to be able to have a timely review before everyone saw it, but whatever. Now it's happening.
I just thought the picture above was funny, the similarity doesn't really effect the movie that much. Although he does sound exactly the same. In fact, everyone's voices in the movie ended up being one of the most entertaining (cheesy) parts. No one really had an accent. It sounded like some characters tried having an Irish accent or something.....They all just ended up sounding either like bad guys or good guys. If that makes any sense. You know, the epic man-voice everyone uses when they're wearing armor and trying to look as intimidating as possible.
Besides the accents, I felt like the best thing about this movie was the historical details. It starts by explaining how King Richard was off in the crusades is currently fighting his way back through France (with Robin in the thick of it with his merry men) to get to England while Prince John is at home hoping Richard will die so he can be king along with his French wife. Little does he (or anyone else) know that Sir Godfried (sp? Mark Strong, bad guy in countless movies such as Sherlock Holmes and Kick-Ass) is planning Richard's assassination and other evil things.....oh no!
So as it turns out, the plot ended up being more complicated than I thought which was nice. It made you pay attention and not just doze off till the next fight scene came along. Plus, Little John (this guy from LOST) has a cool, big hammer thing. Speaking of weapons, the fighting was OK I guess......the big battle at the end felt like the writers just wanted to have some cool slow motion fighting. In the water. Almost like one of those many music videos in rain. There's so many of them and they're all the same. Just like the action in the movie! You've seen it all before. It's choppy, it's fun, it's not that important.
What really got me was how each character was given so little dialogue/screen time. You'd think because Robin Hood is in it and he's played by Russell Crowe and because Cate Blanchett is Maid Marion....they'd be on screen. A lot. But they aren't. It jumps back and forth so much, I feel like it got a bit out of hand. Crowe and Blanchett really didn't have to do any acting anyways. The acting wasn't bad, it just didn't require any sort of depth or drama. Swing a sword and sometimes yell/raise your voice. Got it.
One last thing that bugged me. Who composed the music? You have to be really careful about composing music for epic movies like these because if it's too dramatic and ridiculous (Kingdom of Heaven, Narnia) it's just dumb. But you can sometimes get awesome soundtracks like Gladiator, LOTR, and Braveheart. Basically, the soundtrack is an essential part of movies like this. Robin Hood's music was almost absent. There wasn't a clear theme, you couldn't even hear it sometimes during action scenes when it was there......just barely. I don't know, maybe it's just because I'm a big soundtrack fan that I'm picky about this.
In the end, it's better than Kingdom of Heaven, but it's no Gladiator. I'd say go if you want to see some sword fighting, beautiful scenery (it's pretty cool), and smashing costumes all set to a quick paced, historical plot, do it. Otherwise, just go watch Gladiator again.
No comments:
Post a Comment