FREE: Blu-Ray + DVD ROBIN HOOD Unrated Russell Crowe Cate Blanchett

The listing, Blu-Ray + DVD ROBIN HOOD Unrated Russell Crowe Cate Blanchett has ended.

From my private collection. Excellent condition. Blu-ray and DVD copies only.

Runtime: 2 hours 37 minutes
Cast aside all notions of men in tights: Ridley Scott's Robin Hood is decidedly earthier and more grown-up than most romps through Sherwood Forest. The presence of the over-40 Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett cinches the deal, lending a dose of worldliness to a project that means to be about the origins of the famous character, who in this incarnation was evidently a late bloomer. Robin Longstride (that's his name before he started wearing a hood) is just returned from a 10-year jaunt in the Crusades when he loses his king and his job. Back in England, Robin folds himself neatly into a Nottingham family, where a grieving widow named Marion and her father-in-law hardly care that he doesn't much resemble their own departed warrior. But the merry men and their famous sideline will have to wait: except for one bit of robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, this movie is more concerned with creating a portrait of the royal intrigue that went into creating Robin Hood than in detailing the high jinks of the Nottingham outlaws. And that's not a bad thing, because although Robin Hood lacks the mechanical action beats that distinguish most films of its scale, it creates an engrossing story line around its political chess playing. Crowe is in reliable crusty-tender form and Blanchett summons up more than her sketchy character probably deserves, but the film has a large cast of chewy, fun performers: Mark Strong does baddie duty as the treacherous pal of King John, William Hurt is stalwart and wise as a royal power broker, Eileen Atkins is a carefully considered royal mum, and Matthew Macfadyen is a Sheriff of Nottingham who's no longer central to the villainy--though no less hissable for his ineptitude. In short, not a Gladiator re-do for Scott and Crowe, but a civilized tale of tyrants and rebels, staged in a pleasingly old-fashioned way. --Robert Horton