I just watched the new version. There is a part of me that wants to applaud the effort, but it's not easy to. The film tries to be England's Gladiator and Braveheart, with a dash of Lord of the Rings. It does not succeed.

I love history, and I approve when movies like this try to have an undercurrent of historical truth to them. And I also am a fan of attempts at a complicated plot. This movie does not do well with these attempts,m however. The story behind Robin's family and history is an example of something that may have worked well in the script, but just didn't come off well in the movie. Whether that's bad directing or even more likely bad editing, who knows. But it did not power the plot at all.

The chemistry between Robin and Marrion is absolutely the poorest version of the many Robin Hood movies. Just terrible.

Robin Hood the outlaw is not even a part of this movie. I guess it sees itself as a prequel to that. Which I could live with if the story itself worked.

There is not even a remote basis for any of this in history. Not really. King John signed the Magna Carter, but it had nothing to do with Robin or an invasion by the French.

If there was one part of this movie I liked, it was the portrayal of King John. There are times when he becomes a sympathetic character, almost likable. If they had developed that more, this would have been a better movie. In real life, King John is an interesting character. History gave him a bad rap, but in reality he was an effective monarch. His brother Richard was a warrior, but a terrible monarch.

The battle scenes are ok, though silly and confused.

So why do I almost applaud the effort? I like movies like Braveheart that combine some real history with a moral storyline that has a timeless value to it. And I like movies that attempt a complicated plot.  So I hope they continue making them. This one fails, but maybe the next one wont.

The studios took a lot of liberties with Braveheart....


Phil

There's already a thread for this.

You should always do a search before adding a thread for a movie, cause many times they're already up.

For the record, this was one of the few movies of last year that I thought was extremely well done and enjoyable.

Yes, Phil, they took tremendous liberties with Braveheart, even more with Gladiator. I think with Brave they got the essence of the war and the reasons behind it very well. The method of conquest of Scotland, or actually reconquest, the inner fighting of Scottish nobles, and the populist nature of Wallace. Longshanks was brilliantly done.

Wallace impregnating the queen was annoying. There was no need for that fiction.

The battle recreations were not historical, but relative to other movie efforts, were very well done.

Jeff, you might have seen it on the big screen, I saw it on TV. That may or may not account for the difference.

I saw the Director's cut on Blu Ray...I think it was almsot a half and hour longer.

I also was very impressed with the special features on the disc.  Alot of time, effort, and money went into this, and IMO, it really showed.  For instance, all the arrows were hand made from real wood.  They actually burned a castle for that 1 scene as well.  And, the locales were all really searched out for the best look and feel.

It surprises me how many peeps didn't like this movie.

You are right about the effort, and I did appreciate those things, even the authentic music for certain scenes. That extra cut might have made a huge difference. You'll notice from my original post I mentioned editing might have been to blame. I felt there was a good script that was possibly getting butchered either before shoot or on the cutting room.

I did think there was no chemistry between the characters for some reason. They just weren't given a chance.

Strangely, I really like the cartoon thing they did at the end for the credits. I thought it was really cool for some reason.