The latest tendencies in classical themed movies toward realism and all the effort the producers put out to achieve it is very commendable. However, it leaves a lot to be desired as far as entertainment goes.
The middle ages was a time when people (even the nobility) were mostly dirty. They bathed about twice a year, if that often. The rich wore over-decorated clothing that smelled of sweat, body odor, shit and piss. The poor wore drab collections of rags that smelled of sweat, body odor, shit and piss - also of the farm animals they bunked with.
The rich spent their days trying to alieviate boredom by hunting, eating their way into early graves, fucking the peasant women and praying they wouldn't get the plague. The poor spent their days poaching, working themselves into early graves, eating whatever they could get, getting fucked by the nobility (in more ways than one), and praying they wouldn't get the plague.
Rich and poor alike stank and were covered in lice, mud and/or shit and could look forward to being toothless by 25 and dead by 40.
The rich had everything and the poor had nothing.
Enter Robin Hood!!! Hero of the people. Righter of wrongs. Who stole from the rich to give to the poor. Bane of unjust rulers.
So it's a familiar story. We know what to expect. Right? Wrong!
This movie sucked because due to the following . . .
1. If the acting performances, especially Russell Crowe's, were any more lame, the actors would all have had to carry canes. The characters were also so out of character as to make me develope no interest in them at all.
2. The middle ages basically sucked. Filth, disease, poverty and superstition almost made dying by 40 a welcome release. So the movie could have done without all that "realism", and added a little color. After all fiction is not ruled by realism, and Robin Hood is a fictional character.
3. Even without the English accent, I think Kevin Costner made a better Robin Hood than Russell Crowe. For that matter, Carey Elwes made a better Robin Hood in "Robin Hood - Men In Tights". For that matter, those movies were better than this one.
Overall, I think just about the whole movie was focused on one thing - the hyping of a sequel entitled
"Robin Hood - Stone The Bloody Crowe".