Robin Hood

Went to see the latest Robin Hood movie (with Russell Crowe & Cate Blanchett) yesterday evening. Great entertainment. Heroic good guys, slimy villains, plenty of swashbuckling, realistic settings, plausible story. What more could you want?

There were lot's of little nit-picky problems with it, but it is a fairy tale, so maybe it's against the movie makers code to make fairy tales too realistic: someone might start to believe in them.

First off we've got Robin Longstride comes home from the Crusades pretending to be Sir Robert Loxley. I saw another movie not too many years ago where Gérard Depardieu comes home from a war pretending to be somebody else and ends up paying for his deception with his life. Of course that was several hundred years later and on the other side of English channel, and maybe things had changed.

Then we have Robin drinking from a glass. I was thinking this was a blatant anachronism, or at least a cross-class anomaly. Common soldier drinking from a glass in a common tavern? But this isn't the stone age, they are working with metal, so glass is entirely feasible. Wikipedia confirms it.

Combat operations at night. We have a wagon load of grain going to the Bishop of York guarded by half a dozen men, but why are they traveling at night? Times are tough, but are they that bad that the church has to sneak about? Isn't traveling by night more dangerous? Aren't they more likely to be attacked by bandits at night? Surprise! They are attacked by bandits. Huh. Imagine that.

WWII landing craft employed by the French. We have an invasion by the French, mostly in small boats. Some of the boats look remarkably similar to the landing craft employed by the allies on D-Day: square prow and stern, drop down ramp on the front. This is starting to look like Kevin Costner's Robin Hood. The farther along we go, the farther we get from reality.

There are boys living in the woods, surviving on their own by hunting, poaching and stealing. They are on the sidelines of the story until the big battle scene at the end, and then they come riding into the fray on their little ponies. That was just nuts. Of course, Cate was there at the big battle, too. That's Hollywood for you.

The big battle between the hero and villain at the end is done with broadswords. Come on guys, Robin is known for using a longbow, not a sword. That's how the English beat the French at Agincourt. And you want them to fight with swords. Bah.