Russell Crowe & Cate Blanchett

You can dress it up or throw mud in its eye, but the enduring appeal of the Robin Hood legend is simple: treachery bested by archery.

The other night, Turner Classic Movies aired the evergreen 1938 classic "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (Errol Flynn in staggering three-strip Technicolor, directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley) and followed up with the first screen version of the Sherwood Forest legend I ever saw, as well as the sourest Robin Hood film yet made.

I speak of "Robin and Marian" (1976), starring Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn, depicted in James Goldman's screenplay as uneasily reunited middle-age lovers striving for a graceful retreat from a ceaselessly cruel world.

What strikes me about the new "Robin Hood," directed by Ridley Scott, is how its preoccupations and sensibilities lie almost precisely halfway between the derring-do of the 1938 film and the harsh revisionism of the '70s edition.

The latest big-screen version of the outlaw myth marks the fifth collaboration between Scott and producer-star Russell Crowe. They made "Gladiator" a decade ago. If stylistic overlaps exist between that film and this one, well, no mystery: Crowe's fellow producer Brian Grazer is quoted by the film's production notes as saying, "If we were going to make this film, it had to be the 'Gladiator' version of 'Robin Hood.'"

I wonder if 15-year-olds who just came out of "Iron Man 2" will have much interest in the movie's paradoxically dour swagger, its recasting of Robin Hood as the linchpin to key Middle Ages historical events. Whatever. I liked it. It's on a par with Scott's "American Gangster": No revelations, but a satisfying, large-scale genre movie, toned up by its cast.

It's an origin myth, a prequel to the Robin of legend, commonly associated with merry men and robbing from the rich and such. The action begins after the Third Crusade led by Richard the Lionheart (Danny Huston) has run its crimson course. Robin, named Robin Longstride, excels as an archer in King Richard's army, which hacks its way in retreat across France in the opening melee. For some, the big opening will work because it accomplishes what Scott and screenwriter Brian Helgeland intended: to give the movie a big opening. For others, it'll be pure chaos.

"Calm and careful," Crowe tells a fellow archer at one point. "Make it count." The advice seems at odds with the direction. At times you long for the man who made "The Duellists" and "Alien" a generation ago, when a director chose to establish a shot and actually hold it for a few seconds.

After the blur of the first half-hour, "Robin Hood's" rangy story begins to take shape. Assuming a dead nobleman's identity, Robin carries the crown of the late king to Eleanor of Aquitaine (Eileen Atkins). Fulfilling his fallen comrade's last request, he then delivers the late nobleman's sword to his widow and father, played by Cate Blanchett and Max von Sydow. Marion is nobody's maid or miss: She's tough as nails and quick with a zinger, and only reluctantly does Blanchett's Marion agree to a financially expedient plan in which Robin will pretend, "Martin Guerre"-style, to be her long-gone husband.

Crowe's performance, technically immaculate, is taciturn to the point of being a bit flat, yet there's really nobody else you'd want in the role. Like Crowe, Blanchett's acting has a natural period sense, though the love story gets some serious narrative competition in Helgeland's other concerns. He juggles scarcely fewer storylines and intrigues than he did in "L.A. Confidential."

Though Robin's band of outlaw brothers provides boisterous comic relief, there's not much merriment in the picture. When director Scott storms a castle, he wants you to feel the danger and the thwwwunnnch of the arrow entering flesh. The panoramic computer-generated landscapes are miles ahead of anything in "Gladiator." Robin's arrival in London on the late king's ship, for example, shows how CG can be used for cinematic-historical good as opposed to digital evil. The climactic battle with France's King Philip has Robin essentially waging war against all England's enemies, from within and without. As history, it's silly. As entertainment, it works.

 

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"Robin Hood" Movie Trailer

 

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MPAA rating: PG-13 (for violence, including intense sequences of warfare, and some sexual content).

Running time: 2:19.

Cast: Russell Crowe (Robin Longstride); Marion Loxley (Cate Blanchett); Max von Sydow (Sir Walter Loxley); William Hurt (William Marshal); Mark Strong (Godfrey); Oscar Isaac (Prince John); Danny Huston (King Richard); Eileen Atkins (Eleanor of Aquitaine).

Credits: Directed by Ridley Scott; written by Brian Helgeland; produced by Brian Grazer, Scott and Russell Crowe. A Universal Pictures release.