Russell Crowe in search of Sherwood Forest. By Kurt Loder Russell Crowe in “Robin Hood” Photo: Universal Pictures Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood” is brilliant, in a way. Faced with the fact that filmmakers have been cranking out pictures about the scalawag of Sherwood Forest for more than a hundred years now, the director and his writers must have pondered at length how to put a unique spin on the oft-told tale. Their brainstorm: Don’t tell it. Scott’s movie, very oddily, is actually a prequel — a sort of origin story for a better Robin Hood movie that doesn’t exist. Maybe brilliant isn’t the word. So Robin Hood fans hoping for some of the dash and wit of the classic films that starred Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn should set their expectation meters to Off. The simple pleasure of a few acrobatic hours with Robin and his Merry Men — and the Sheriff of Nottingham, chubby Friar Tuck, evil Prince John and the lovely Maid Marion — is not forthcoming. True, there is a Sheriff of Nottingham loitering around the edges of the action; and also some men called Little John, Will Scarlet and Allan A’Dayle, although they’re not very merry. Mark Addy’s mead-sipping Friar Tuck is a fairly lively character, but Prince John, played here by Oscar Isaac, is an unthreatening buffoon, and Marion, played by Cate Blanchett, is hardly the elegant beauty of lore — at one point we get a closeup of her washing clots of mud off her bare feet. Russell Crowe, in his fifth collaboration with Scott, dispenses with Robin’s traditional tights and feathered cap, which is not a great loss; but he also dispenses with the character’s traditional high spirits, which is. In fact, the Robin cobbled together by writers Brian Helgeland, Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris isn’t even the jaunty rogue nobleman of earlier versions of the story; here, he’s just a glum yeoman called Robin Longstride, a loyal archer in the service of good King Richard the Lionheart (Danny Huston). As the movie opens, in 1199, Richard and his weary men are returning from the latest Crusade in the Holy Lands. They’re plundering their way through France en route to England, where Richard’s conniving brother, Prince John, has his eye on the royal crown. John is planning to dump his current princess and marry sultry young Isabella of Angoul
