Robin Hood (7/10)

Ridley Scott wasn't remaking any Robin Hood story, especially not Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves. He's giving us a new story of how Robin Hood became, well, Robin Hood. And in order to make that even clearer, the opening lines said that this archer's name was Robin Longstride, and not Robin of Loxley which we have come to know.I for one am not disappointed with this movie. It wasn't of epic proportions even though the story did try to be, but it wasn't a failure either. Far from it, I thought it deserved more credit than what people are giving it.Perhaps Russell Crowe could have been more charismatic, but that's the old Robin Hood. Not this one. This one's more sullen and serious, and I thought Crowe did enough. He did at one point became very outspoken when he was confronting the king, which seemed out of character but that could be argued as being passionate about what he believed in.I had doubts when I saw Cate Blanchett as Marion but I got it half an hour in to the movie. And Mark Strong gave quite a performance as well as the antagonist. But same goes to the rest of the cast. I only wished there were more of Little John and Will Scarlet.The beginning action sequence I thought was brilliant. But actually most of it were. The only thing I would say there was a huge lacking of was to  have Robin Hood shoot more arrows and wowing the audience with his proficiency with the bow. This Robin Hood fought too much with the sword. Another negative I would say was how Friar Tuck and Marion could out of nowhere pick up weapons and fight, and kill their enemies. That was a bit of a stretch without some background detail.The story took a lot of surprising twists and turns, but I thought overall it worked well in its entirety. It was well told, well directed, and everything looked great onscreen. The humour was few but worked really well with some great lines. Particularly when Prince John was making a fool of himself, "Gentlemen, we go to war. This is my first time. I shall lead."