Robin Hood x5

As a benchmark for our blog's five-year anniversary, we decided to introduce a new concept, in which we will compare numerous film versions with the same story. We limited our scope to classical re-tellings of a specific story; meaning that the expectation would be for them to be somewhat faithful to the original story. Hence, we decided against including Men in Tights here, as it is a satire. However, it came as a shock to us that the satire is still a better version of Robin Hood than two of the most recent versions. So, why Robin Hood, you might ask? First of all, this is one of our favourite folktales (and Jonna's absolute favourite) and admittedly the story hits home for us ideologically, although ideology itself rarely makes a story good or interesting for us. We have to say that there is something about a class traitor stealing from his "own kind" to give to the poor that really resonates with us. (In the most famous versions he was a noble, and we know that in the earliest versions Robin Hood was a commoner, but as a child that was never the version you were told.) We'll discuss why we love the original story more in depth when we talk about the different versions. We're going from worst to best, and obviously it is our personal preferences that determine the outcome.


Robin Hood (2010)

Characters

Robin: By a mile and a half, the most god-awful Robin we've witnessed on screen. Even if one was to disregard Crowe's complete miscasting, this character would be atrocious. He's boring as hell to watch because you're never given any tangible motives for his actions. In order to subvert the known story, they have managed to create an unrecognisable Robin Hood. We think the film-makers didn't realise that if they subvert his character, all of his original motives will disappear and they would have needed to replace them with just anything else. Alas, they did not, and for the viewer it's confusing to follow when your main character is running around like a headless chicken.    
Marian: As we have stated before, this Marian belongs to "the strong independent woman" cliché club. It's the classic "I can take care of myself", but in the end it's all "ooooh, save me!" And they have the misconception that making a female character take part in fighting somehow magically gives them personality. Physical power has never made any character, be they male or female, interesting. 
Merry Men: They ain't merry and are barely in the movie.
Villains: Waste of Oscar Isaac as Prince John. During the film, he's not even a villain and the Sheriff of Nottingham is like an afterthought. The real villains of the film are the French, a foreign enemy. This is what pisses us off the most and goes against every other version of Robin Hood in existence. Robin Hood has always been a story about domestic issues. Even when the Crusades were put in, they only served as a backdrop for domestic usurpers to seize power. 

Story

Convoluted as fuck. We have now seen it twice (the last time was literally last week), and we could not tell you what was happening. We might be able to tell you 'the what' but not 'the why'. Because we're convinced that there is no 'why', or at least a consciously made 'why', we hope. Jonna watched a few interviews where the film-makers talked about their desire to subvert everything about the original folklore (and they clearly only know the Errol Flynn one). But by subverting everything and not replacing it with something else that they have purposefully designed instead, the ideology has turned into something truly disgusting. Instead of criticising the rich and greedy assholes who are prospering because they are financially oppressing the peasants, the moral of the story has morphed into "look, our oppressors will unite even with us peasants to fight against our common enemy: the foreigners." Any class consciousness has been erased. We're generally not concerned whether a movie aligns with our ideologies or morals (after all, we like plenty of Clint Eastwood's films), but when a movie's characters are this bad (and characters are always the reason we like something) and the ideology is this repulsive, there's really no saving it from our disdain. A word on the so called love story - ugh! It made us feel second-hand embarrassment to hear supposedly mature adults delivering lines that made them sound like they were in a Twilight - novel. 

Misc./Technical aspects

It's Ridley Scott, so editing and other technical aspects are competent and might function very well, if the story and characters were any good. Like in most modern blockbusters, the colours are muted and the music sucks. The runtime is absurdly long. Clearly, Scott wanted to make another Gladiator. 


Robin Hood (2018)

Characters

Robin: Way to ruin perfect casting, people. We guess Aladdin (the remake) took advice from this one, with the "no character introductions for the main two characters". We never get to know who this guy is. Granted, they at least gave him some kind of a motive. It sucks, 'cause it's basically "gotta get my girl back", but it's a motive. He's a bland character that you'll forget immediately once the movie's over, and the same goes for the rest.
Marian: Just read above. She is assigned one motive but unfortunately it does nothing to give her personality. She's simply a blank slate. 
Merry Men: At least Little John has some semblance of a backstory or something. The rest of them...utterly forgettable. What a waste of Tim Minchin.
Villains: How many times does Ben Mendelsohn have to play the villain?!?!? He's basically just recycling his role from Rogue One. Our main problem with any of the characters is excruciatingly bad writing. 

Story

What the movie wants to be is a Marvel/superhero - film. The "modernising" made it painfully obvious that the studio wanted a superhero franchise, not a stand-alone great movie. The sad thing is that the original story would work seamlessly in a modern context. Billionaires and megacorporations reaping benefits by economically oppressing the already impoverished? Sign us up for that movie! There's no story because they wanted to mesh all the existing movie versions into one. At least the enemy's domestic in this one, so it's not a hot mess like Scott's Hood. The love story stinks, it's just not as soul-crushingly embarrassing like the previous one, but it's still as lifeless as a corpse that's been floating in the Atlantic for two years.   

Misc./Technical aspects

There's one semi-decent action scene. The rest of the time you just wish it was already over. Fortunately the runtime isn't as painfully long as the 2010's one. It has the same dull colour scheme and wannabe Hans Zimmer music, though. We'd pick this one over Scott's version, and this is complete shit. And we would not recommend this to anyone. That's how bad the previous one is.


Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)

Characters

Robin: Kevin Costner was even more miscast than Russell Crowe. Literally any actor of any nationality would have worked better. The character's better written than Crowe's, but that's about it. 
Marian: She's actually okay. At least she attempts an English accent. She has some personality, even though we still sneer at the whole "damsel in distress" - ending. Love her character design.
Merry Men: Morgan Freeman works always. The rest of them are there as well at least and have some connection to the main character and even Christian Slater is more believable than Kevin Costner.
Villains: Alan Rickman is 100% the best thing about this movie.

Story

The story's surprisingly not half-bad. It has some internal logic, they've bothered to create a backstory, give discernible character arcs and create actual relationships. Even Costner's miscasting couldn't destroy all of that. You still don't see Robin really defy the authorities because the film focuses so much on the action. The magic shit definitely doesn't belong in Robin Hood (it's not King Arthur) and sticks out like a sore thumb, but we prefer the theatrical cut anyway, where they had deleted most of the magic stuff. There's not much else to say - if it wasn't for Costner, this would be a guilty pleasure for us.

Misc./Technical aspects

Most of the action sequences are super entertaining. Music is a guilty pleasure of ours, it has a clear colour palette, even though most people are dressed in rags (can't say that about the previous ones). We'd pick this one over them any day. And when Prince of Thieves does something better than your movie, you know you're in deep shit.


Robin Hood (1973)

Characters

Robin: The only English (voice) actor in these five films. And he's fucking great. The first and only crush Jonna has ever had. He's cheeky but sincere. 
Marian: She's much more of a minor character here and she's maybe less active. But we still like her. She has her moments and the fact that she keeps Robin's wanted poster on her wardrobe's door is pretty funny.
Merry Men: It's more of a bromance between Robin and Little John, since the others are in much more minor roles. The bromance is awesomely fun, though.
Villains: Prince John's the main attraction, and dear god, does he play his part to perfection. There hasn't been a more enjoyable whiner in all of Disney's history. Hiss and the Sheriff work as great henchmen.  

Story

It's surprising how well they captured the essence of Robin Hood in such a short runtime. The film's climax is Robin freeing the villagers from debtor's prison and robbing Prince John blind. When a 70's Disney animation is more true to Robin Hood's origin than anything that has come after, it's a very sad state of affairs indeed. This is perfect family entertainment.

Misc./Technical aspects

The animation clearly does not match the studio's work from when it has been doing well. But it's not awful, you can just see that the budget was limited. We still love all the character designs and only the one and true Robin Hood film has more stunning colours. Love, love, love the music - in particular Roger Miller's songs. 


The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)


 


     




 Characters

Robin: The embodiment of who Robin Hood is to us. Flynn's joviality, the deep care he has for the downtrodden and the iron moral backbone have always been what defined Robin Hood to us. He hasn't a single selfish bone in his body, but he's not without fault. He can be impetuous and impulsive to the point of stupidity. 
Marian: Holy shit. If there is something amiss in modern film-making, it's the fact that a female character from 1938 is still the best version of this character. De Havilland's Marian is amazing, especially by today's standards. She's the only one in the film who has a transformative character arc, and how often can you say that about modern male-led or even some female-led, movies?!? And the fact that she doesn't do any fighting simply makes her character better, because she has to survive just with her wits. To this day, de Havilland's Marian is the only one to have saved Robin. And although she doesn't fight, she ain't a goddamn "damsel in distress" either. She faces certain death with absolute composure while voicing her contempt for the tyrants who would hang her. It's no wonder that the characters of Robin and Marian have never been done better, because they are utter perfection here. 
Merry Men: They're all here and they have great rapport with Robin and each other. The scenes that summarise Robin's attitude and equal camaraderie with the group are Robin's joyful response "I love a man that can best me!" to Little John after their fight and when he consults the men what to do with the ransom gold they've stolen. 
Villains: Claude Rains, man. It's like The Holy Trinity of villains. Prince John is the driving force with the main motive, Guy of Gisborne is his right-hand man with a creepy crush on Marian and the Sheriff is a bumbling idiot with impeccable comedic timing. 

Story

It's perfection and we couldn't think of a single improvement. It's an unattainable balance of adventure, fun, romance and even drama. In comparison to other Robin Hood versions, this movie highlights quite adeptly that othering a group of people is an acceptable way of normalising oppression, and this oppression always includes economic aspects. 

Misc./Technical aspects

The colours are sublime, and this was one of the first ever Technicolor - movies. It's still miles better than anything else we've reviewed here, how is that even possible?!??! This has the musical score for Robin Hood. Other technical aspects are beyond brilliant as well. It's incredible that this movie is 81 years old and the industry has made such strides and yet we could not suggest a single change to improve anything in this masterpiece. We even love the fucking tights and bent swords. In addition, the film literally saved lives.

Aladdin vs. Rocketman

Unlike the rest of the world, we have decided not to compare Rocketman to Bohemian Rhapsody. Because literally everyone has already done it. To be perfectly honest, we found Rocketman to be a much better movie than Bohemian Rhapsody because it attempts to use the medium of film to its fullest. If you want true to life, make a documentary. Films are by definition fiction. Both Aladdin and Rocketman are musicals and we find it more enjoyable to compare within a genre. In addition, we went to see Aladdin and Rocketman in the same week.

Aladdin

Pros: The cast had potential, they seemed to have good chemistry. With a better script and direction the cast alone could have made it work. Some of the comedy bits were actually functional. The costume design was eye-catching.

Cons: Musicals are really not Guy Ritchie's forte, or epic storytelling for that matter (see the disaster that is King Arthur). He's much better at the tongue-in-cheek comedy. Talking of musicals, why did it have to be a musical? Repeating something that has already been done is not inspiring. It's exactly the same complaint we have of the Beauty & the Beast remake. The beginning immediately threw us off. There are no character introductions. If you're making a stand-alone film, it doesn't matter if it's a re-telling or based on previously known source material, you need character introductions. You cannot go in with the assumption that the audience already knows these people. It's a cardinal sin in storytelling. That is unforgivably lazy writing/directing. The film is quite cluttered. Pretty much every frame is full of something, even when it needn't be. So your eyes never get a moment of rest and that makes it difficult for you to tell what to focus in on the screen. Oh, and good job making Jafar incredibly boring. The animated Jafar is one of Disney's most enjoyable villains. 

The original narrative theme (of being trapped) wasn't there and they hadn't bothered to replace it with something else. The scene where Aladdin was even more of an asshole than in the animation (the one where he fights with Genie), and then suddenly without any internal or external prompting changes his mind is just lazy. That scene epitomizes the languidness of this film. Furthermore, we're not big on the arrangements of the songs.  A Whole New World in particular was quite dreadful. All in all, the movie's pretty lackluster and unremarkable. And that in itself is a disadvantage. This remake is a basic example of current film trends. Everything needs to be explained and the message must be hammered in, because obviously the audience would never get it otherwise. Why bother using visual means, when you can simply say it?

Rocketman

 Disclaimer: We might be a bit biased, because we fucking love Elton John.



 Pros:  Casting was even better than we imagined. We forgive Bryce Dallas Howard's accent since she at least plays the character convincingly. Storytelling happens mainly through visual means. They have given new meanings to the songs by presenting a different context, hence the songs actually function as musical pieces that further the story or tell you something about the characters. The story's not all over the place, it focuses on the few themes chosen for the movie. We do love an unreliable narrator, which Elton basically is. The costume design is downright divinely inspired. They made surprisingly good and competent arrangements of the songs. 

Visually much more balanced than Aladdin. When the frames were cluttered, that was purposeful to express something storytelling wise. Even when the frame was full, you knew where your focus should be drawn.We didn't want a documentary, so we were happy to see a film that used the medium as intended and created a fantasy that might as well be an Elton John song itself. We like personal, intimate and character driven stories. So obviously that's  a pro for us.

Cons: A few cheesy moments here and there. Between the climax and I'm Still Standing the ending felt a little drawn out. On a couple occasions it might sound like someone singing Elton John in a karaoke (when it's not the lead actor). 

General: It's pretty obvious that we think there is no contest on which was a better movie. Essentially, Aladdin feels like the Disney cash grab and is perfectly mediocre to boot. Rocketman is super accessible and commercial (despite the useless R rating, it was rated 12 in Finland). Yet it has passion for the craft, a little artistic flair and creativity that is now almost extinct in commercial mainstream films.