Robin Hood

It's late 12th century England and, miffed with the relentless “crusading” and following the death of King Richard the Lionheart, ace bowman and honest hardcase, Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) has blagged his way back to Blighty on the king’s horse only to find Albion is now an over-taxed, humourless void suffering under a self serving stewardship (sound familiar?) and he himself is locked at the centre of a cross-channel fracas with unbearable political ramifications.

Sound serious? It is. People with neatly carved facial hair generally are. And the opening of Ridley Scott’s movie is no different. Fifty minutes in, after a hideously skewed history lesson with plenty of banging effects and thousand yard stares, we looked at our timepiece for the first time and wondered if the chaps were having more fun back in the office.

Unfortunately for Scott, Crowe and all the other high-falutin' Hollywood ensemble that put the film together, it’s just fucking boring.

There really is no amount of lingering Crowe looks, intense exchanges and slow-mo-bowmanship that can make up for the relentlessly pompous script.

Mark Strong, as the hitherto unknown Sir Godfrey, adds a bit of colour with his predictably cartoonish display, and Max von Sydow, playing the blind father of Robin of Locksley, (whom Robin Longstride eventually usurps - don’t ask), steals the screen every time he bumbles on it.

Add to the mix some really quite exceptional Lord of the Rings-esque panoramics of our green and pleasant land, and you start to think it's a passable actioner...

But then Crowe comes on the screen again. And so does Cate Blanchett. And then the "Merry Men". And, after over two hours of well-thought-out monotony, they fight a last overblown battle against Strong and the French which adheres to every single action cliché in the book. And your last yawn can hold itself back no longer.

The rather silly tale of Robin Hood has long been a favourite of ours and we desperately wanted this to be good. Unfortunately we just cannot recommend it.

Bring back Alan Rickman.