Robin Hood - Gladiator 2?

Despite being typically black and white in its portrayal of history and full of some pretty laughable geographical inaccuracies, Robin Hood is actually pretty good fun. I had been looking forwards to this film since it was originally announced several years ago. Back then I was living in Nottingham and they were going to have Russell Crowe play the sheriff of Nottingham, several years later and several things have changed. Now I live in Berkshire and Crowe has switched to reprising his role as Maximus out of Gladiator - hmm, not a great start for either of us.

Let's have a quick debrief of the history before moving on. For a Hollywood-funded action movie about medieval England, the history is actually not as bad as one might immediately assume. The events surrounding John's ascension to the throne appear to be largely true, and the Magna Carta was eventually signed in 1215 by King John after a rebellion by English barons following a disastrous defeat of John in France - which is kind of hinted at. A bit. All the stuff about French hoodlums riding around England killing people and the coastal invasion by Phillip of France is a total joke of course, but we can let that slide I recon. Not to mention the fact that the nations of England and France as we know them today were not even close to being established in the late 12th century - so the concept of Robin Hood inspiring the locals of Nottingham to defend the realm in the name of national freedom is far-fetched indeed. Not to mention Robin's strangely modern live-and-let-live views on religion. Anyway, enough of that.

The point of films like this is not to worry about historical fact. The point is watch Russell Crowe leap around, shoot arrows and bash French people over the head for two hours. Maybe I should have been perturbed by Cate Blanchet turning up the end in armour riding a horse (so she's a knight? Really? Since when?) leading a pack of local children into battle? Perhaps I should have been more put-off by Russell Crowe's frankly dire effort at a generic northern English accent? I wasn't expecting anything more than a brainless action fest, and that's exactly what was delivered.

That being said though, it's not as good as Gladiator.