Panic in the Year Zero! (Milland 1962)

(NOTE: this is another classic review, originally written in 2008 and before my review of the The Quest)

Late last year, I was working on a project about the adaptations of Richard Matheson’s novel “I Am Legend,” and picked up a DVD with the first adaptation of the novel, The Last Man On Earth (Salkow 1964), a low budget production from noted B-film horror studio American International Pictures (AIP), producers of many early Roger Corman films. The disc was a double feature DVD which included another AIP production, Panic in the Year Zero!

Panic in the Year Zero! both stars and is directed by Ray Milland, star of Billy Wilder’s famed 1945 film The Lost Weekend (which I still need to see) and Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 classic Dial M for Murder, working from a script by John Morton and Jay Simms. The film is the story of the Baldwin family, consisting of patriarch Harry (Milland), wife Ann (Jean Hagen of Singin’ In the Rain [Donen and Kelly 1952]), son Rich (teen idol Frankie Avalon) and daughter Karen (Mary Mitchel), who are on their way to a camping vacation when they discover a mushroom cloud over the Los Angeles area. As word comes in over the car radio of the destruction of major cities over America (and Canada!), Harry decides the family needs to continue on their journey as opposed to returning home in order to protect themselves both from the fallout and possible lawlessness as society seems to collapse around them. With each mile, the family is pushed by Harry’s increasing survivalist drive into extreme behaviour which pushes them outside the bounds of societal order.

The central thematic and dramatic crux of the film is the conflict between survival and the need to preserve society and civil order, and the point in which irrational panic begins to take control of the former. The masterstroke of the filmmakers is in their use of the stereotypical patriarchal organization of the Baldwin family to organize these themes and allow the audience to gradually witness the system of patriarchy and its values undermine themselves rather than resorting to didactic tactics.

While Ann occasionally voices questions about Harry’s increasingly aggressive measures to ensure his family’s safety, her willingness to submit with ease to Harry’s decisions allows the viewer to witness the contradictory, simplistic and dangerous aspects to Harry’s militaristic and survivalist attitudes for themselves. Harry frequently references potential threats towards the family in order to coerce their willingness to go along with his plans. However it is his behaviour that is closest to the threats he describes, turning to using weapons on store keeps and causing a massive traffic accident in order to get his family across a major highway. When Harry is finally confronted with what appears to be the threat he has been worried about, the situation only escalates because of Harry’s insistence of possessing firearms.

In perhaps the most damning moment of the film, Harry, having established his family’s base in a cave, preaches about the need to attempt to maintain a semblance of civilized life. However, unlike Ann’s previous and later moments of stating the need to maintain rational behaviour and trust in her fellow man, Harry’s view of civilization is limited to the need for daily shaving. Civilized behaviour is merely an act to be preformed, an act without substance.

Milland has a complex character in Harry, and his performance is up to par, allowing the viewer to keep sympathy for Harry even as he continues to dig his own grave and one for his family. The only other actor given substantial material to work with is Avalon as Harry’s son, and his performance is solid if not up to Milland’s work. Harry’s use of his son within the film is alternatively frightening and loving, as he tries to transform Rich into a man such as himself.

Where the film struggles is in its third act, in what I can only guess at the moment is due to the film being produced during the days of the Hay’s Code. After two acts of Harry’s increasing ethically questionable behaviour, the film attempts to shoehorn in a group of villains in order to mitigate the questions surrounding the actions of the Baldwin family. The filmmakers do their best within these constrictions to keep the moral ambiguity going however, as the last minute crisis of the film is the result of another of Harry’s fear based decisions, and the ending of the film refuses narrative closure, undermining the attempted moralizing on the part of two individuals at the film’s conclusion. The end result is fascinating to behold.

Milland’s direction of the film is solid if unspectacular, making the best of the low budget production values of AIP. Unfortunately these limitations occasionally become noticeable, including the use of some obvious stock footage and a poorly realized mushroom cloud. Thankfully the film is mostly an actor’s piece, allowing Milland to focus upon the drama and thematic issues rather than effects work, elaborate sets and staging. In Milland’s favour is also the solid screenwriting of Morton and Simms. A set of third act coincidences however are problematic, unnecessarily bringing back characters whose roles could easily have been fulfilled by other characters.

Oh, and I could not talk about the film without discussing Les Baxter’s music. Having written music for many AIP pictures, Baxter here writes a very jazzy score which, while seemingly at odds with what is onscreen, strangely enough works for the film in the end, giving the film an off kilter feel which matches the shifting morality of the family.

All in all, Panic in the Year Zero! is worth checking out, a thematically rich and dramatic B-film. Personally, I really want to check out more of these AIP films given my success thus far with them. However, in order to get a bit of possible pain out of the way, I think I am going to watch another film with actor directing himself next: The Quest (Van Damme 1996).

God help us all.

The Full Treatment [Stop Me Before I Kill!] (Guest 1960)

As you will notice from the heading of this review, the film under discussion today has two titles. The proper title for the film and the one which the film was originally released under in the UK, is The Full Treatment, while the North American release title (and the one included on the DVD edition of the film here in region one) is Stop Me Before I Kill! While both titles reflect the content of the film, neither title is totally successful in reflecting the ironies and complexities of this psychologically and sexually focused thriller. Director Val Guest has, as the second title suggests, crafted a pulpy film that sets out to titillate and shock, but the film is more than just a cheap thriller, as it explores male fears of emasculation and the complexities of psychoanalysis through playing with audience identification, voyeurism, and the audience's desire for control over the narrative's meaning.

The Full Treatment is the story of a famous English race car driver named Alan Colby (Ronald Lewis) and his wife Denise (Diane Cilento), who on their wedding day are involved in an accident. Nearly a year later, the couple are reattempting their honeymoon in Cannes, but Colby is afraid that sexual desires seem to be manifesting in a desire to kill his wife. During their trip, they encounter Dr. David Prade (Claude Dauphin), a French psychiatrist who operates out of London, who takes a interest in the couple, an interest which unsettles Alan. However, with his violent urges growing, and a push from his wife, Alan agrees to undergo treatment with Dr. Prade, a treatment which turns out to be more than Alan and Denise ever expected as Dr. Prade‘s own desires come into play.

The plot of the film is deceptively simple, with the surface narrative suggesting a tale of a man who loves his wife but is afraid to harm her do to his own personal guilt, who manages to salvage himself by submitting to analysis and finally proving his worth as a healthy male. This surface narrative however is unable to truly contain the underlying contradictions and ambiguities, which transform the film into an exploration of male misogyny, driven by fears of emasculation by women and the comforts of the homosocial environment. These themes are further complicated by the films explicit guidance of the audience to perform a psychological analysis on the film, whilst at the same time pointing out the failings of such an approach.

The opening scene of the film is overwhelming in the information it reveals to the audience. Filmed as a long tracking shot, the opening scene reveals several important details: first, that the accident happens on the wedding day of Alan and Denise, as revealed by a “just married” sign on their badly damaged car; second, Denise, while injured, is conscious and able to move, only collapsing after checking her husband; lastly, we discover that Alan is a famous race car drive from his picture being on the side of a petrol tanker which stops at the crash. This opening scene reveals much about the complicated existence of its protagonists, as the spectacle of the accident also is imbued with the spectacle of celebrity, and the couple’s marriage becomes correlated with the accident.

This correlation is one of the most vital points of the film with regards to subtext, as Alan’s inability to drive and function within a sexual relationship begins with the accident. Alan’s sense of masculine identity is tied to his abilities of a race car driver, a profession noted for dangerous driving while remaining “in control.” This profession brings Alan fame, and as the film points out, large numbers of women with whom to engage sexually. The event of marriage, an event in which the individual becomes part of a larger unit, requires a degree of relinquishing a sense of control over ones life to that of another, as well as sexual freedom. Thus, the wedding/crash becomes a double site, and “sight” for the audience, of Alan’s emasculation both sexually and professionally, the latter seemingly being the result of the former. Furthermore, since Denise is the only one with memory of the accident, she holds a level of control over Alan who lacks this knowledge.

Were the film to stop here with regards to exploring/explaining Alan’s drive to violence, the film would simply be reflecting a sense of gynophobia which emerges in acts of misogynistic behaviour on the part of the filmmakers as well as the characters. However, I am not sure that film is this this conservative and regressive. Given that the central dramatic thrust is focused upon Alan and Prade, in which Alan undergoes a further emasculation by the lecherous drives of Prade, Denise is sidelined, and serves mostly as a figure of victimization by both Prade and Alan, Denise is less a character and more of a figure onto which Alan and Prade project their desires and fears. Mind you, this victim status and Denise’ willingness to be subjected to abuse and manipulation by both reveals a sexist attitude on the part of the filmmakers which leaves her a weak character, but it does manage to avoid outright misogyny by focusing its attention squarely upon two heavily flawed men.

Then again, perhaps I just reworking the film to my own ends, creating a narrative subtext that fits my views and attitudes in order to give me a sense of mastery over the text. At least, the film wants the viewer to reflect on this possibility with its most subversive tactic: the inclusion of psychoanalysis in the narrative proper in the figure of Dr. Prad. As noted, Alan and Denise are not merely any couple, but celebrities who very existence becomes something of a spectacle for the public at large. In this sense, the Colby couple become evocative of the spectacle of cinema itself, and through Prade, the film challenges the audience’s voyeuristic drive and meaning generating agendas. If there is any doubt about this, consider that Prade first encounters the Colby couple in Cannes, the site of the world famous film festival that has taken place since 1946.

Prade’s voyeuristic desires to know and understand Alan’s psychology and ultimately substitute himself in place of Alan mirrors the audiences own voyeurism and the identification process with the film‘s characters. Prade’s psychoanalysis of Alan mirrors the audience’s own desire for understanding of the character and his behaviour, a point made by the repetition of Prade looking upon the couple at a distance. However, as Prade’s own desires become increasingly obvious Prade’s analysis and its results come into question: to what degree is the analysis “true,” and to what degree is it tainted by Prade’s obsession? Prade’s desire to gain “possession” and control over Denise begins to mirror our own desire to control the film’s meaning, disrupting the process of analysis and forcing a reflection upon the degree to which we bend a given text to fit our own needs. It is complex meta material, far beyond what the lurid title of Stop Me Before I Kill! would suggest.

The film’s pleasure are not entirely intellectual however. Director Guest has crafted a tense film filled with visual flair, which only manages to stubble in its resolution, which requires the smartest character in the film to make a foolish decision and a moment of chance in which a character witnesses something they more than likely would not. Moreover, Guest manages to pull serviceable performances from Lewis and Cilento, while giving Dauphin room to steal the film from everyone around him in a performance which recalls (and predates) Anthony Hopkins’ take on the character of Hannibal Lecter.

It should be noted that the version I watched of the film is 108 minutes in length and found on the Icons of Suspense Collection of Hammer Films. If the IMDB is too be believed, the original UK version of the film is a full 12 minutes longer than the American cut, though for the life of me I cannot figure out what material would be missing, as the film is tightly constructed without feeling incomplete. This means that the biggest complaint I have with the film is the American title, and it is not often that the title is the only thing to complain about. Highly recommended.

How to Get Ahead in Advertising (Robinson 1989)

Let me get this out of the way: I am not exactly the biggest fan of the auteur theory, or at least in the way that it has been adopted by modern Hollywood and other film industries. The idea of an auteur, of a discernable author to be found in a director who, in a very personal way shapes a given film, is wonderful in theory and problematic in practice most of the time, with very few directors honestly having a firm sense of being personal authors over a given work. Yet in practice, we frequently see the cursed “Film By” credit on films by the most impersonal of filmmakers, including Brett Ratner and Ron Howard. At best, their work is workman like and effective at carrying a film; at worst, vapid and hollow, doing little more than pointing a camera and calling shots. These are not filmmakers who a filmgoer gains any insight or understanding of, a point which even Michael Bay has managed to accomplish with his films, even though that personal insight amounts to little more than “I like to blow things up.”

So it is always nice to come across a film like How to Get Ahead in Advertising from writer/director Bruce Robinson, a film which is a work of a legitimate auteur. There is not one moment in this film where the guiding hand of Robinson isn’t to be found, not one scene where the audience cannot tell that Robinson is talking directly to them. This is all the more apparent because when all is said and done, regardless of how funny the film may be, How to Get Ahead in Advertising is a film boiling over with anger. And if there is one emotion that everyone can recognize, its anger.

The story of How to Get Ahead in Advertising is as simple as it is absurd: advertising executive Dennis Bagley (Richard E. Grant) is stressed out over his inability to find a way to sell a new brand of pimple cream. This stress reaches a point where Bagley seemingly snaps, turning against advertising at the same time he develops a stress boil. His wife (Rachel Ward) believes that Bagley has gone almost completely insane when Bagley starts to claim that the boil is talking to him and other people. As the boil grows however, it begins to take control of Bagley’s life, leading to a series of surprising and disturbing developments which leaves Julia questioning her husband’s supposed insanity.

While consumerism and advertising are the obvious targets that Robinson attacks in the film, Robinson is most interested in the way language has been usurped, twisted and corrupted by the forces which control mass media, distorting language to the point that greed, hate and other vile concepts are naturalized and accepted. Moreover, the manipulation and alteration of language has made resistance within the world of the film impossible, with Bagley having so internalised the corruption that his initial resistance manifests as signs of insanity.

If some of these concepts sound familiar, they should, as they in part derive from the concepts of “newspeak” and “doublethink” from George Orwell’s masterpiece of fiction, 1984, which is directly referenced in the film and is the key intertext needed to understand the themes of How to Get Ahead in Advertising. Robinson goes beyond suggesting that advertising is engaged in a similar manipulation and reduction of language found in Orwell’s text by expanding the concept to show how visual arts have also been co-opted in a similar manner, thus evoking the cinematic apparatus in its criticism. The media not only have the power to shape realit here, but do so by naturalising the worst aspects of humanity.

Given this inclusion of commercial cinema as being part of the problem, Robinson deliberately sets out to make the film as artificial as possible in order to avoid being guilty of the very things he is attacking: the characters are more caricatures than real people, the situations that the characters find themselves in are contrived, and even the visual look of the film is heightened to appear clearly constructed as the film goes forward, including the practical effects which are deliberately rubbery and cheep. In the central role, Richard E. Grant is allowed to go for broke, brining a level of megalomania that seems more in place with a 1960s Bond villain, with Rachel Ward’s performance coming off as natural only by comparison.

All of this will likely be off putting for audiences expecting a narrative and character driven film. While the central premise would seem to be open to psychoanalysis as an analytical approach, particularly given the similarities of the premise to the concept of body horror, How to Get Ahead in Advertising only uses a loose narrative as a means of exploring and “dramatising” the ideas and concepts it seeks to talk about, with characters functioning as overt symbols. As an idea driven film however, the approach is appropriate and seeks to engage the audience on an intellectual level rather than an emotional level.

The irony of this approach though is that it does damn the film, in a manner of speaking, with regards to its audience. The bluntness of the film’s approach will likely be off putting to those seeking a greater sense of subtlety and complexity from the film, yet given the film’s resistance to commercial narrative practice and emphasis on ideas over cohesion and character, the film will likely be off putting to the audience Robinson’s arguments would be most important to. Robinson himself seems to be aware of this, as an early scene in which Bagley tries to explain to the very nature of language manipulation fails due not only to resistance from average consumers to the idea, but also because Bagley openly distains these people.

As such, How to Get Ahead in Advertising is hideously bleak film, while being a conflicting but fascinating work of art. Within the context of similarly themed films, such as David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, the film will likely be found lacking, but it remains a complex and engaging work none the less worthy of viewing and study. Most importantly though, for those seeking a film looking to know and feel the artist behind a work, How to Get Ahead in Advertising is Bruce Robinson at his most raw.

Black Rain (Scott 1989)

After the disappointment of Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood (2010), both as entertainment and as art, it was interesting to dip back into the work of Scott with Black Rain, a 1989 police thriller starring Michael Douglas. While a heavily flawed film, featuring lapses in logic and pulling out nearly every cop film cliché in the book, Black Rain is also a film which serves as a reminder as to just how visually powerful Scott’s work can be, especially in his 1980s heyday. Unfortunately, the impressive visuals also happen to go along with a confused and conflicted cultural and political subtext that borders on being xenophobic.

Black Rain’s narrative is the stuff of typical police thrillers: New York police officer Nick Conklin (Michael Douglas) is under investigation by internal affairs, when he witnesses the slaying of a Yakuza member in a restaurant along with his partner Charlie (Andy Garcia). The killer is another Japanese criminal, whom they capture. Forced to return the criminal to Japan, Conklin and Charlie act as curriers, only to accidentally turn the killer over to his own fellow criminals. Looking to make up for the mistake, Conklin and Charlie are forced to work with a Japanese detective named Masahiro (Ken Takakura), with the usual cross cultural misunderstandings taking place as they take to the streets to crack the case.

While the film is a police thriller, the real concern of the film is with the increasingly encroachment of capitalism, industrialism, consumerism and conformity upon the world, with Japan, and by extension its citizens, being a culture representative of these elements within the world of the film. Visually, Japan in the film is an industrial nightmare of oppressive buildings and advertisements,suppressing the personal for the supposed sake of society as a whole. Given this, it is no surprise that the opening image of the film is of the red sun of Japan’s flag being overlaid on a globe of the world, the first indicator of the film’s near racist paranoia of cultural invasion through globalisation. If not racist, the film is at the very least reductive in its portrayal of Japanese society and culture, playing up the noted “-isms” to the negation or submersion of other cultural attitudes and elements which make up Japanese society.

The fear of these “-isms” is given voice by Conklin, a detective who is something of a throwback to the cowboys of American mythology with his repeated resistance to “suits,” by any-means-necessary approach to policing, and visually in his navigation of urban, industrial spaces with his modern horse, a motorcycle. Conklin’s resistance to the forces of capitalism stems from a fear of being emasculated: divorced and attempting to keep his kids in private schools, Conklin has turned to occasionally skimming from the criminals he captures to function in the society he finds himself in. Conklin’s arrival in Japan places him in a society which, as already noted, has become a symbol for all these elements, increasing his feelings of distress and giving his rage a racist dimension as he becomes angered at the attempts to sideline him in the investigation.

In a different and much smarter film, Conklin’s behaviour and rage would have been explored while giving room to the possibility that his anger towards the noted “-isms” have a legitimate root. The narrative trajectory of Black Rain however is one in which the East and West move closer to one another, as represented in the relationship between Conklin and Masahiro, and as a result the film attempts to suppress or negate the thematic concerns with mixed results. An example is the way in which the film addresses the issue of Conklin’s theft from the criminals he captures, where Conklin explains that his theft was motivated by the needs of his family. While the film rightfully doesn’t allow this to justify Conklin’s behaviour, Conklin’s reasons and sense of emasculation in his inability to perform well in a consumerist society does hold a grain of legitimate criticism.

(SPOILERS)

However, such issues are brushed aside in the final as Conklin finally comes to wear a suit himself, now officially having “bought” into the mentality he has thus far detested. The film even goes a step further in having Conklin give a gift to Masahiro of a high end suit shirt (along with a certain plot device). Handled differently, this moment could have been a note of ambiguity, but instead, Scott presents the moment as one of bonding and light heartedness, failing to take note of the question of just how Conklin is, in his newfound state of being a brainwashed consumer, able to make his way without needing to steal. Instead, we are expected to simply accept this for the “happy” moment it is.

The film is also unable to rectify Conklin’s supposed transformation with the oppressive nature of the capitalist society, as visualized by the endlessly dominating cityscape of the film. The film never manages to convincingly give Conklin power over his environment, and thus instead allows him to regain a sense of masculine authority by being able to engage in his cowboy antics in an open, rural environment which descends into a one on one battle between Conklin and the film’s villain. Given this, Conklin more or less lucks out in being given an opportunity to police his way rather than successfully demonstrate any ability to function in the world around him. As such, the ending “transformation” is made all the more hollow and artificial, and more over, upholds an American sense of law enforcement and justice over the approach taken by the Japanese police in the film.

(SPOILERS DONE)

While the finished film is a thematic mess, upholding the values of capitalism, consumerism and industrialism while at the same time giving a half hearted critique of them, one could at least hope for a cohesive thriller narrative. Unfortunately, even the basic narrative is something of a mess, with lapses in logic, plot holes, plot conveniences and typical police procedure clichés. Given that Conklin is under investigation by internal affairs as the film starts, the very idea that he would even be allowed to leave the country is questionable, and the film’s subplot involving Kate Capshaw as an American bar tender in Japan serves little purpose beyond keeping the plot moving and giving Conklin some sort of romantic foil. Seeing as how the film never actually manages to give any screen time to this supposed romance however, it instead feels like a tacked element from another script, and the idea that Capshaw’s character would honestly be as well connected to the Yakuza as she is defies all sense of logic.

The film is furthermore done no favours in having Michael Douglas in the lead. While Douglas does capture the emasculated side of Conklin, Douglas performance more often than not is not that of a man raging against the world around him, so much as it comes across like a child throwing a temper tantrum. A scene is which Conklin supposedly gets down to business by searching a crime scene for clues is particularly glaring, as Conklin, without any rhyme or reason, merely starts destroying the area in broad sweeping gestures. Scenes such as this occur often in the film, and raise questions as to why he has any respect on the force at all, as there is clearly no real method to his approach. Thankfully, the rest of the cast aside from Douglas is able to keep the film afloat, though no one is given much to do in the film.

As much as I am ripping the film apart, there is one thing which ultimately holds the film together and makes it worth at least a rental, that being Ridley Scott’s visuals. Working with director of photography Jan De Bont, Scott creates a world that is utterly beautiful in just how bleak it is, mixing rich blacks and neon colour together in their representation of the city of Osaka. Every frame of this film is simply a stunner to look at, layered and full of life, even in the starkest of scenes. While it certainly doesn’t forgive the film’s other faults, the visual power of the film was such that I often was willing to go with the narrative just because of how beautiful the film looked. For those with Blu-ray players and HDTVs, Black Rain is worth every penny to see how good a film from that era can look.

Still, I can hardly make an honest recommendation of Black Rain beyond those fans of Scott. The film is simply too thematically confused and lacking in anything to make it engaging to be worth watching. The same however, cannot be said for another 1989 film looking at commercialism and consumerism: How to Get Ahead in Advertising, the film to be reviewed in the next few days.

UPDATE: June Plans

Hey folks!

After the disaster that has been May, June is shaping up to be a much stronger month. Several reviews are already in the works, and should be posted soon.

Will keep you updated.

Robin Hood (Scott 2010)

It has taken me three separate attempts to try and figure out how to talk about Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood in some sort of meaningful way. Each attempt has led me down a different path, considering the film in a variety of contexts in hopes of trying to understand just where the film goes wrong. After picking apart the film, turning it over in my head, and going over my experiences with Ridley Scott’s body of work, I have come to only one conclusion: Robin Hood is the first Ridley Scott film that is completely paint by numbers from start to finish. The paint by numbers set might be the one Scott designed himself, but paint by numbers is still paint by numbers.

At the start of the last decade, Scott kicked things off on a relative high with Gladiator (2000), a film that was a solid piece of old fashion sword and sandals filmmaking that was not Scott’s best work, but was certainly worthy of viewing. Gladiator provided an interesting, if conflicted, reflection of the place of violent spectacle in society, giving it slightly more depth than it might have otherwise had. Little over half a decade latter, Scott again returned to the large scale epic with Kingdom of Heaven (2006), which in its true director’s cut form is a more fascinating work than Gladiator, with even greater technical skill demonstrated on the part of Scott.

Now at the start of a new decade, Scott delivers his Robin Hood, and from start to finish, the film plays out like a desperate attempt to reclaim the past glory of Gladiator for both Scott and star Russell Crowe, as they transform the English legend into a tale which follows Gladiator almost beat for beat: a weary soldier wishes to return home, only upon his eventual return finds himself becoming a hero of the people and drawn into the political games of a self absorbed and childish ruler who has just inherited the throne. Unfortunately, Robin Hood is neither a refinement of the earlier work, nor does it expand the themes in any significant way. Instead, their efforts to recreate Gladiator only succeed in doubly damning the film, as the film not only fails to live up to Gladiator, but fails to work as a tale of Robin Hood as well.

If Scott and Crowe were so determined to recreate Gladiator, than one has to wonder why the duo bothered with Robin Hood at all. The legend has always felt more in line with superheroes than it does with grand scale epics. The stories are often episodic in nature, focusing on a band of outlaws who not only rob from the rich and give to the poor (an activity which only happens once in Scott's film I might add), but set out to humiliate a corrupt government and defend the defenseless while hiding out in the forest. Yes, they were military men, and a film focusing on that part of their lives might have been interesting. However, the approach in this film of making Robin a contemplative soldier who yearns to be free of violence only succeeds in transforming the character into one of a million similar characters to populate cinema in recent years.

In an odd way, this homogenized version of the Robin Hood character is encapsulated in the film's action scenes, which are as skillful and professional as any Scott has directed. However, the one thing Robin Hood is known for, if nothing else, is that he uses a bow and arrow. While this weapon of choice does make appearances throughout the film, more often than not time is spent focusing on Robin in sword based combat. One of the key plot points in the film even is about the passing down of a sword from father to son, a sword which ultimately ends up in the hands of Robin. While the passing on of a sword may be more historically accurate (I assume here, but am more than willing to be corrected), given that this is Robin Hood we are talking about, a focus on his weapon of preference would not only have been welcome, but at least give the film something to distinguish it from similar films. Not much of a distinguishing mark mind you, but still a distinction.

The biggest problem with the film however is just how vapid it is. The film is void of any real subtext or meaning, stating so many of its themes and ideas outright that it never gives the audience a chance to think for itself. Yes, it is a summer blockbuster, but it is no excuse. Scott has made vastly intelligent films before without sacrificing intelligence. Even the commentary on violent spectacle in Gladiator was of some interest, even if the film was guilty of the very thing it was criticizing.

I should point out at this point that Robin Hood is not terrible. The film is beautifully shot by director of photography John Mathieson (who surprisingly does not use of the colour blue that often this time out, a possible first in a long while for Ridley Scott), and the cast of the film is uniformly excellent. The problem is just that so much of what is here feels like warmed over seconds rather than a bold creative venture for those involved. Ridley Scott has been long known for tackling pretty much every genre under the sun, usually with a high level of ambition, so to see him rest on past success is more disheartening than anything else.

While general audiences will likely be pleased, fans of Ridley Scott are more than likely to be disappointed in the final effort, while fans of Robin Hood are likely to just be angry with the film overall. Judge where ye stand well, and go forth and make ye decision.

UPDATE

Had the chance to see Robin Hood tonight, and have delayed my Iron Man 2 till I finish Robin Hood, which I have quite a bit to say about.