Movie Review: All the Money in the World

All the Money in the World *** / *****

Directed by: Ridley Scott.

Written by: David Scarpa based on the book by John Pearson.

Starring: Mark Wahlberg (Fletcher Chase), Michelle Williams (Gail Harris), Charlie Plummer (John Paul Getty III), Christopher Plummer (J. Paul Getty), Stacy Martin (Secretary), Andrew Buchan (John Paul Getty II), Timothy Hutton (Oswald Hinge), Romain Duris (Cinquanta).

 

You have to hand it to Ridley Scott. When he heard about the awful things Kevin Spacey was accused of – and knowing damn well that those allegations would likely kill the prospects of All the Money in the World, just two months before release, he didn’t ignore them. He didn’t give the standard statement those in Hollywood have given about those they’ve worked with accused of doing horrible things. He basically said, fuck that guy, recast his key role in the film with Christopher Plummer (who, apparently, he wanted in the first place, but the studio wanted a bigger star), reshot all of Spacey’s scenes, and released the film on schedule. That took not just guts, but skill – and Scott pulled it off brilliantly. Christopher Plummer is far and away the best thing about All the Money in the World. Unfortunately, other than him – and a fine performance by Michelle Williams – I’m not really sure the film works all that well. It’s a kidnapping thriller, yet it’s not really much of a thriller. It’s a drama about the super-rich – but I don’t think it really delves down deep enough there to make it truly insightful. I was never bored by the film – Scott is nothing if not a constant professional who knows what he’s doing, but I’m not really sure what the point behind this one was.

 

It is the early 1970s, and J. Paul Getty (Plummer) is the richest man in the world – and yet, still one of the cheapest. He is an oil magnate, who loves the power that comes with money, and things it can buy. He hasn’t had much time for his family – so little in fact, he doesn’t even know his grandkids that his son has fathered with his wife, Gail Harris (Williams). But his son is unemployed, and comes to his dad for a job – and gets it. But he’s a screw-up and a drunk, and soon a drug addict. He divorces Gail, who gets custody of the kids – even if the elder Getty had started to take a liking to John Paul the third (Charlie Plummer). A few years later, when this Getty is still a teenager, and roaming around Rome on his own, he is kidnapped. The kidnappers want $17 million. Gail doesn’t have even a fraction of that – but her ex-father-in-law does. But he’s cheap, and doesn’t want to pay a cent. What he does do is direct a former CIA agent in his employ, Fletcher Chase (Mark Wahlberg) to help Gail get her son back.

 

Christopher Plummer clearly is the best thing in this movie. His J. Paul Getty is a petty man to be sure, but he does it all with a gleam in his eye. He’s having a blast screwing over anyone and everyone he can – knowing that because he has the money, they’ll keep coming back. He lives like Charles Foster Kane in his huge estates, with art on the walls – but he has no scruples, no morals, no nothing. He likes to win, and he does all the time. The only thing that keeps Plummer from completely walking away with the movie is Williams, who is nearly his equal as Gail Harris. She grew up rich, but her family doesn’t have their money anymore – but she does know her way around this world. She does a great job putting up a tough face whenever she needs to, and is the only one who can go toe-to-toe with her father in law and win – and that’s because she’s the only one who doesn’t care for his money.

 

This movie really should be better than it is – it certainly sounds better in that last paragraph, and when you factor in gunfights with kidnaps, and Mark Wahlberg as a CIA agent, it should be fun, right? But the kidnapping part of things never really goes anywhere. They try and establish a bond between the younger Getty and one of the kidnappers – but it doesn’t really work. Wahlberg seems out of place for most of the movie – he doesn’t get to punch anyone after all (I don’t know who first observed this – but it’s true – it seems more like Wahlberg was the one edited into this movie at the last minute, not Plummer – as I spent the movie wondering what exactly he was doing there).

 

Overall, the film works, when it’s concentrated on Plummer or Williams, and not really if it’s one anyone or anything else. True, Scott knows how to direct this type of movie well – and he does a good job here as well. And yet, the film just kind of runs its course, and never quite reaches takeoff altitude. You have to admire it for pulling off what it did – and yet, still be slightly disappointed it didn’t pull off even more.

Movie Review: Alien Covenant

Alien: Covenant *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Ridley Scott.

Written by: John Logan and Dante Harper  and Jack Paglen and Michael Green based on characters created by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett.

Starring: Michael Fassbender (David / Walter), Katherine Waterston (Daniels), Billy Crudup (Oram), Danny McBride (Tennessee), Demián Bichir (Lope), Carmen Ejogo (Karine), Jussie Smollett (Ricks), Callie Hernandez (Upworth), Amy Seimetz (Faris), Nathaniel Dean (Hallett),  James Franco (Branson), Guy Pearce (Peter Weyland), Noomi Rapace (Elizabeth Shaw).

 

Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) remains the best film in the franchise – a pretty much perfect horror film that set an impossibly high standard for anything to compete with. When James Cameron made Aliens (1986) – he was smart to make more an action movie than a horror film out of it – it allowed him more room to make his film different than Scott’s. When Scott returned to the franchise with 2012’s Prometheus, he made a horror film to be sure – but it was one filled with ideas – some better than others – about mankind’s creation. I liked that film more than most – I dug the fact that in a film of that size, Scott was daring to try to do something other than repeat himself – address some bigger ideas. Yes, the characters do some incredibly, incredibly stupid thing – characters in this series have always been doing stupid things, but Prometheus pushed that to its breaking point – but I did like Noomi Rapace’s Elizabeth Shaw as a successor for Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, and loved Michael Fassbender as the curious robot David. And on a technical level, the film was a big, bold, beautiful monster – sure, the “Engineers looked a little funny – but so much else was great, and the alien abortion sequence is one of the best in the franchise. In short, I’ll take some big ideas – even if they’re big, dumb ideas – along with the special effects over a film that doesn’t have any ideas at all.

 

It took five years to get a sequel to Prometheus – and I think Alien Covenant is an even better film than its predecessor was. There are still ideas here – but Scott tones them down a bit, plays up some of the horrific set pieces, and turns Fassbender’ s David (the only real returning character from the previous film) into the series’ best, non-Alien villain – a Frankenstein’s monster who becomes Dr. Frankenstein himself. Yes, once again, the characters do some almost inconceivably dumb things (keeping your fucking helmets on people! And do not look into the writhing, squishy egg David asks you to) – and the film introduces an interesting idea about faith, and then complete abandons it – but these are flaws the movie can deal with, because so much else works so well.

 

The film is about another giant spaceship – the Covenant – which has 2,000 colonists aboard, heading to a far off planet that they will eventually call their own. The only one not in hyper sleep is Walter (Michael Fassbender) – a slightly newer model than David (who we see in the films first scene, talking to his creator – so we know he’ll come back). Things go wrong, of course, the crew is woken up – the Captain is killed, etc. Drawn to a nearby planet by a rogue signal (a John Denver song) they put on hold the rest of their journey (another seven years of hyper sleep await them) – and decide to explore. It, of course, is not a good idea. The planet seems deserted – but of course it isn’t. David is there – and he’s got some friends.

 

Undeniably the best new character in the film is Daniels (Katherine Waterson – who in the span of just a few years has become one of my favorite actresses, following Inherent Vice and Queen of Earth). She was married to the Captain who died (many of the crew are married couples – which makes sense given they aren’t on a single mission, but are out to colonize a new planet) – so she’s already dealing with her grief when they land on the planet – and things start to go wrong. Most of the other crew members are there as alien fodder – you know the drill – although I would have liked to see them do more with Billy Crudup as the second in command who becomes Captain – and says that as a man of faith, they didn’t trust him to lead the mission. Also, Danny McBride acquits himself nicely in a more dramatic role, Upstream Color’s brilliant Amy Seimetz probably made some money as his wife (and she’s pretty good) an Carmen Ejogo is mainly wasted as Crudup’s wife. The star of the movie is Fassbender however, doing a dual role as David, who barely tries to cover his ulterior motives, and Walter – who is newer model, but also less evolved (he says the robots of David’s time creeped people out because they were too real). Fassbender, playing the embodiment of evil for the second time this year (following his role as Satan in Terrence Malick’s Song to Song) is having a blast with his dual role – especially when David and Walter interact with each other, and David teaches Walter how to improve his fingering.

 

The film doesn’t rise to the level of perfection of the first two films in the series. Like everything that has come after that point, Alien Covenant is an imperfect monster. But this one is scary, and fun – and has a hell of an ending, even if you see it coming from a mile off. In short, it’s about as good as a movie like this, in 2017, can be expected to be.

Movie Review: The Martian

The Martian
Directed by: Ridley Scott.
Written by: Drew Goddard based on the book by Andy Weir.
Starring: Matt Damon (Mark Watney), Jessica Chastain (Melissa Lewis), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Vincent Kapoor), Kristen Wiig (Annie Montrose), Jeff Daniels (Teddy Sanders), Michael Peña (Rick Martinez), Sean Bean (Mitch Henderson), Kate Mara (Beth Johanssen), Sebastian Stan (Chris Beck), Aksel Hennie (Alex Vogel), Mackenzie Davis (Mindy Park), Donald Glover (Rich Purnell). 

There is a reason why movie stars are always cast in the roles of men (and the occasional woman) who trapped by themselves for most of the movie – and the reason is simple charisma. Movie stars are often not the best actors, but the best ones are an innate ability to get you to like them immediately. Think of Tom Hanks in Castaway or Robert Redford in All is Lost or Sandra Bulllock in Gravity. You immediately like them and are willing to follow them anywhere the movie takes them. They can also hold the screen with ease. Matt Damon is a movie star with the best of them – and he is key to why Ridley Scott’s The Martian works – and is actually one of the best big budget films of the year. Damon spends most of his screen time by himself, talking to himself (or the audience through his video diaries) and thinking through a series of complex problems that threaten his life as he is stranded on Mars. The film is basically about a group of really smart people getting together to solve a series of complex problems, using science that people much smarter than I have deemed at least close to reality. There is Damon’s Mark Watney on Mars of course – but back at NASA there are a lot of other really smart people also working on a series of problems. And following the lead of casting Damon in the lead to make him instantly relatable and likable, pretty much every supporting player is played actors more than capable of carrying a movie by themselves, who give affable performances, and for the most part get along. Sure, there are times when the people at NASA disagree – but there are no villains here. Just really smart people, doing really smart things.

The film opens with a crew already on Mars – a sudden storm hits, Watney is struck with flying debris, making the rest of the crew think he’s dead (his “biometer” says he is)– and they cannot find his body, but don’t have time – if they don’t take off now, they’re all dead. Of course, Watney isn’t dead and when he wakes up to discover the rest of the crew gone, it would be easy for him to simply give up. After all, he now has no way to contact NASA, and even if he could, it would take years to get him help – and he doesn’t have the food supply to last, let alone a place that has been designed to stand up for that long. But no matter, Watney takes things on, one problem at a time – and eventually when NASA finds out he’s alive, they do the same thing.

Ridley Scott has made science fiction movies that ask bigger questions about what it means to be human, and where we fit into the grand scheme of things. His Blade Runner (1982) is a masterpiece of the genre, and even if Prometheus isn’t well loved, I actually quite liked it – and appreciated the fact that Scott and his collaborators were trying for something grand. The Martian is not one of those movies. The movie is almost a comedy – full of witty banter and comradery, and asks no greater questions other than the most mundane – like how to grow potatoes on Mars, without enough water, in soil that has never grown anything. And how can he get a Mars rover to travel farther than it’s supposed to – and is there a way to prolong the battery life, etc. The film is based on a book by Andy Weir – a scientist himself – and he takes these questions seriously. He also takes the more complex questions about the logistics of sending help to Mars seriously as well. The movie retains the books sense of humor – it actually heightens it in many of the scenes in NASA, where the film almost has the feel of a Howard Hawks comedy from the 1940s – where talented people just bounce off each other.

The Martian isn’t groundbreaking in anyway – but it is rock solid, mainstream entertainment – Scott’s best film in years, a genuine movie star vehicle for Damon, and an ensemble comedy when it’s at NASA. You know the outcome going in – but that hardly matters. Neither does the running time – which is nearly two and half hours – but flies by. The Martian is pure, mainstream entertainment – done better than most movies of this size and scale in recent memory. If it doesn’t reinvent the wheel at the same time – well, it doesn’t really need to.

Movie Review: Exodus: Gods & Kings

Exodus: Gods and Kings
Directed by: Ridley Scott.
Written by: Adam Cooper & Bill Collage and Jeffrey Caine and Steven Zaillian.
Starring: Christian Bale (Moses), Joel Edgerton (Ramses), John Turturro (Seti), Aaron Paul (Joshua), Ben Mendelsohn (Viceroy Hegep), María Valverde (Zipporah), Sigourney Weaver (Tuya), Ben Kingsley (Nun), Hiam Abbass (Bithia), Isaac Andrews (Malak), Ewen Bremner (Expert), Indira Varma (High Priestess), Golshifteh Farahani (Nefertari), Ghassan Massoud (Ramses' Grand Vizier), Tara Fitzgerald (Miriam), Dar Salim (Commander Khyan), Andrew Tarbet (Aaron).

Ridley Scott has done his best over the past 14 years to keep the old school epic alive. In the past 14 years, Scott has made films like Gladiator (2000), Kingdom of Heaven (2005), Robin Hood (2010) and now Exodus: Gods and Kings. I was never a fan of Gladiator – I know many love it, but to me it was overlong and over dour, and I didn’t think his attempt to make Robin Hood into Braveheart really worked very well either. The Director’s Cut of Kingdom of Heaven however is one of the best epics in recent years – bland lead Orlando Bloom aside. Exodus: Gods and Kings is his attempt, along with Darren Aronofsky’s Noah, to bring back the Biblical epic to the big screen. This is, inarguably, an attempt by the studios to tap into the Christian audience that feels underserved by Hollywood studios (because they are). What Exodus shares in common with Noah are that both attempt a more serious, less preachy Biblical epic than we are used to seeing. As with Russell Crowe’s Noah, Christian Bale’s Moses has more doubts, is more flawed, more human than we are used to seeing in movies of this nature – or at least that is the attempt here. But Scott isn’t very good with this human side of his Biblical figures. While he uses special effects effectively, and gets many of the “big” moments in the film right, he gets almost all the quieter, more human, more introspective moments wrong. There are moments in Exodus that are almost laughable – and it becomes impossible to take it seriously. If you believe Howard Hawks’ definition of a great movie serious – three great scenes, no bad ones – than Exodus is perhaps half a great movie – it certainly does have three great scenes. The problem is most of what surrounds them is bad – really, really bad.

The movie opens when Moses (Bale) and Ramses (Joel Edgerton) are already adults – and it quickly establishes their character – Moses is strong, brave and principled, Ramses is vain, egotistical and rather petty. Although Ramses’ father, Seti (John Turturro), says the two are as close as brothers, there is no real evidence of that in the film – Moses clearly likes Ramses, and does save his life, but from the get go, Ramses seems to view Moses with suspicion – as if he knows that one day they will come into conflict. Moses doesn’t know his real life story – how he can to be raised in the royal family, even if he’s outside of it. It isn’t until he goes to see the Viceroy (Ben Mendelsohn), who is charge of the Hebrew slaves, and finds him to be corrupt. He also talks to some of the Hebrew elders – one of whom, Nun (Ben Kingsley), tells him his true origin story. Of course, this gets back to Ramses, who banishes Moses – who goes off and lives his life, still keeping his origin secret, marrying and having a son. He doesn’t return until God – oddly in the form of a British child – speaks to him, and tells him to lead his people. This sets off the part of the story we all know – the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, etc.

It is in these big moments where the movie works quite well. Scott uses CGI well, and the Red Sea sequence is quite thrilling, if completely unbelievable. Even better is actually a quieter sequence – when the plague of the first born dying, which is done in darkness, and features the only moment of Edgerton’s performance that is effective – when he comes in to find his infant son dead. It is a masterful moment. The problem is, even though much of the CGI and action work is well done, that quiet moment is the only quiet one that actually works.

Part of the problem is the performances. Bale has a tendency to be a little too serious in his roles – sometimes it works, but here, his Moses is, like Russell Crowe in Gladiator, a downer for most of the movie. You cannot say he’s a whiner, because he never whines, but his yelling sounds a lot like whining. The movie hints at some of the same things that Aronofsky’s Noah does – that perhaps Moses wasn’t chosen by God, but is just insane, but Bale doesn’t go as far as Crowe did in that movie. Edgerton is given a pretty much unplayable role – his Ramses is so poorly conceived on the page, that I don’t think he ever really had a chance to deliver a good performance. The same could be said of Aaron Paul as Joshua – whose role seems to be to walk in on Moses every time he’s talking to God, and then slowly backing away. The two best performances are by Turturro and Mendelsohn – and for the same reason. They seem to understand how ridiculous the movie is, and how even more ridiculous their characters are, and rather than try to sell that, they play it to the hilt Yes, they go over the top – but that’s precisely what the roles need.

In the end, I think what sinks Exodus: Gods and Kings is that it never really decides what it wants to be. It’s stuck between being an old school epic – which presents everything as given, and something more complex, and thought provoking. The film swings back and forth, and never really finds it footing. Yes, there are some good moments sprinkled throughout – but Exodus makes the case as to why Hollywood doesn’t make these movies very often anymore – they’ve forgotten how.

Movie Review: The Counselor

The Counselor
Directed by: Ridley Scott.
Written by: Cormac McCarthy.
Starring: Michael Fassbender (The Counselor), Penélope Cruz (Laura), Cameron Diaz (Malkina), Javier Bardem (Reiner), Brad Pitt (Westray), Rosie Pérez (Ruth), Richard Cabral (The Young Man/The Green Hornet), Natalie Dormer (The Blonde), Édgar Ramírez (The Priest), Bruno Ganz (The Diamond Dealer), Rubén Blades (Jefe), Goran Višnjić (Michael), Toby Kebbell (Tony), Emma Rigby (Tony's Girlfriend), John Leguizamo (Randy), Dean Norris (The Buyer), Fernando Cayo (Abogado Hernandez).

I saw the Coen’s Brothers No Country for Old Men twice in fairly packed theaters – once at TIFF in 2007 and then again a few months later with my wife. Both times, after Tommy Lee Jones brilliant final monologue, when the screen turns black and silent, and the credits start rolling, I heard more than one audience exclaim “That’s it!” I know my experience is not singular to me – many have reported the same thing at screenings of the film back in 2007. And you really cannot blame the audience members who exclaimed it either – after all, movies condition us to expect a certain resolution, that No Country for Old Men does not give us. The main character is murdered – off-screen – his killer, the heartless killing machine of a villain, has walked away free, and the lawman who was chasing him has admitted he’s giving up. It’s a dark ending, a troubling ending, but a fitting and brilliant one.

Ridley Scott’s The Counselor is clearly a film by the same author of No Country for Old Men. The two taglines the Coen brother’s masterpiece used in their posters “There Are No Clean Getaways” and “You Can’t Stop What’s Coming” could easily be used for The Counselor as well. Whether Josh Brolin’s Llewyn Moss knows it or not, his fate is sealed the moment he takes the money from the dead drug dealers he stumbles upon. The Counselor (Michael Fassbender) has his fate sealed even before the movie begins. He’s warned – repeatedly – that once he goes down this path, he’s screwed, but he dives headlong in anyway.

Because the film is directed by Ridley Scott, who is known for mainstream fare, and has an all-star cast, and yes, because it’s been marketed like a mainstream thriller, it’s no wonder that most audiences – and critics – expected just that. But that is really not what Scott, and McCarthy writing his first original screenplay, have made in The Counselor. It’s almost an anti-thriller. Complaining that you can see the plot twists coming from early in the film is beside the point – there’s not even a real plot twist in the movie at all. It’s clear that McCarthy isn’t interested in writing a typical thriller – or even a screenplay that follows the normal rules we are conditioned to expect. The plot details in The Counselor are hazy because they don’t really matter all that much (although by the end, you can piece together everything that happens as long as you pay attention). This is a cold, heartless, violent film about inevitability – and indicates as much almost from the start. If at any times during The Counselor you expect a happy ending, you aren’t paying attention.

The film stars Fassbender as the unnamed lead character – a lawyer, who we first see under the covers with his soon-to-be fiancée Laura (Penelope Cruz). Soon we’ll see him meet two men – Reiner (Javier Bardem) and Westray (Brad Pitt), and we’ll understand the basics of what is happening. The Counselor has set up a drug deal with a Mexican cartel, using Reiner and Westray as middle men. They are importing $20 million worth of cocaine using massive, rundown trucks from Mexico to Chicago. We meet other characters – like the heartless Malkina (Cameron Diaz), the current girlfriend of Reiner, who has a cheetah fetish. Then there’s Ruth (Rosie Perez), a client of The Counselor who asks for his help getting her son out of jail on a speeding charge – this seemingly innocent request, that The Counselor does without thinking, is what will eventually screw everything up.

Many, if not most, reviews of The Counselor have complained about the pretentious dialogue – that goes on for minutes on end, and happen in scene after scene. But the dialogue in The Counselor is one of its greatest strengths. When did we start expecting movie dialogue to sound the way real people talk? The dialogue in The Counselor is highly stylized to be sure, but it’s also brilliant. This is one of the most quotable films of the year. The dialogue has a rhythm all its own, and the cast digs into it with gusto. My favorite may well be Brad Pitt, particularly in his first scene in a bar, where he lays for The Counselor precisely what he can expect – but his warning falls on deaf ears. But there are pleasures to be had watching any of the characters dig into the monologues McCarthy gives them – Bardem, saying more in his first scene here than in all of No Country for Old Men and Diaz making the most of getting playing the most amoral character in a film filled with nothing but amoral characters. And then there are the characters who only get one scene but make the most of them – Perez, reminding you why she is a better actress than she ever got credit for, Bruno Ganz going on about diamonds and their imperfections, Edgar Ramirez as a Priest who has no interest in Diaz’s confession, Ruben Blades as a man who waxes philosophical while threatening certain death, Toby Kebbell showing that The Counselor may have made more mistakes than just this one and John Leguizamo explaining to Dean Norris a particularly sick joke by Columbians. Fassbender is very good in the movie as well – but he’s also the film’s most passive character – sitting there and listening to everyone else, but never letting anything really sink in until it’s too late.

The Counselor may not be a perfect film – there are certainly flaws here. No matter how much I love the dialogue, it is true that the characters never really rise above the level of archetypes (although, again, I think it’s intentional). I cannot really complain about those who say the film is misogynistic – there are really only two female characters with any screen time, and Cruz’s Laura is presented as pretty much the embodiment of female perfection – or at least a man’s idea of female perfection – and Diaz is presented as her polar opposite – a heartless, she-devil. And the now infamous scene of Diaz literally having sex with Bardem’s car is unnecessary (as this scene is told by Bardem to Fassbender, it would have worked much better without the visual staging of the scene). But I still have to say, Diaz goes for broke – not just humping the car, but in her every scene in the movie. And to be fair, I don't quite think the film is misogynistic as much as it's mianthropic - it's not like any of the male characters are portrayed any better than the female ones.

 
The Counselor is a movie that most people are going to hate. It’s cold, it’s violent, it’s cynical and it doesn’t deliver the traditional payoffs we expect when we go see a star studded thriller or a Ridley Scott movie. But for me, it’s one of the best films of Scott’s career. Good for him diving headlong into McCarthy’s dialogue, and making a polished film out of the product – not the kind he would normally make (or the kind his brother, the late Tony Scott would make, although some critics have compared this to those film for reasons that escape me - yes, there is a superficial similarlity to some of the dark themes that run through Tony Scott's work, but stylistically it's far removed from his work, although perhaps there is something to be said about Ridley making a movie this dark after his brother's suicide) – but instead the movie that demands to be made out of McCarthy’s screenplay. And good for the actors who dive headlong into the movie, and make the most of the opportunity to deliver the type of dialogue that we almost never see in the movies. Yes, most people will hate The Counselor. Good for them. For a few people however, The Counselor is a special movie. I’m one of those people.

Movie Review: Prometheus

Prometheus *** ½ 
Directed by: Ridley Scott.
Written by: Jon Spaihts & Damon Lindelof.
Starring: Noomi Rapace (Elizabeth Shaw), Michael Fassbender (David), Charlize Theron (Meredith Vickers), Idris Elba (Janek), Guy Pearce (Peter Weyland), Logan Marshall-Green (Charlie Holloway), Sean Harris (Fifield), Rafe Spall (Millburn), Emun Elliott (Chance), Benedict Wong (Ravel), Kate Dickie (Ford), Patrick Wilson (Shaw's Father), Lucy Hutchinson (Young Shaw).

Ridley Scott’s Prometheus is one of the best sci-fi movies in recent memory. Not only that, even though the film was billed as a prequel to Alien, it stands on its own as a great film – it is not reliant on nostalgia for its greatness like many long running series are. Scott didn’t like this being considered a prequel to Alien, but says it is more of a film that takes place in the same universe as Alien and its sequels, but may not really be a part of the same story. Yes, you walk in expecting another Alien movie – but the movie quickly subverts and exceeds those expectations. Even now, days after I saw the film, I cannot stop thinking about it.

When two scientists – Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) discover cave painting from thousands of years ago which all have the same pattern. These societies had no interaction with each other, and yet they seem to be pointing in the same direction – out into deep space. They scientists, with generous help from the Weyland Corporation, figure out what planet these cave painting seem to be pointing to – and an expedition is mounted. Shaw and Holloway feel that they may have discovered humanity`s creators. The Weyland Corporation sees an opportunity to make money. The scientists, and a crew that includes the icy cold, mysterious Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), and robot David (Michael Fassbender), who has modeled himself after Peter O`Toole in Lawrence of Arabia, head off to that distant planet – and as you can probably guess, things do not go as planned.

The original Alien was really a horror movie, with science fiction elements. The sequel, Aliens directed by James Cameron, was more of an action movie, with science fiction elements. The great thing, to me at least, is that Prometheus is real science fiction through and through. This is a film full of ideas about where humans come from and why we exist. Yes, there are horror elements – a couple of bloody scenes that are very tough to take (there is a self-inflicted surgical scene that is among the more disturbing scenes in recent memory), but at its most basic level, this is classic science fiction stuff – done with intelligence, which is rare in this day of age. Even the best of the recent sad stock of science fiction usually gives way to action at some point – but even when Prometheus becomes a series of violent episodes at the end; it retains that mystery of the unknown that drives great science fiction. We know this from the first scene, which gives us a very brief explanation of perhaps how life on earth began – and, depending on how you look at it, may just answer the bigger questions that the movie asks. Like many great science fiction stories, Prometheus asks more questions than it answers – but that is part of what makes Prometheus so interesting.

The performances in the movie are mostly very good. Charlize Theron is good as mysterious and cold Meredith Vickers – we know she has secrets, but she is good at hiding them – and making us look closely at her seemingly expressionless face to try and figure them out. Noomi Rapace, the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, is excellent in what is essentially the new Ripley character, as the tough as nails heroine, who is still sympathetic and human. The best performance though belongs to Michael Fassbender, who has the difficult task of playing the robot. Unlike previous Alien movies, there is no secret that Fassbender’s David is a robot – and I think that works well for the movie, as it allows a more philosophical debate about creation to be had involving David. Fassbender does an excellent job making his emotionless character the most fascinating one in the film.

But let’s be honest – it is the visuals that truly make Prometheus special. Ridley Scott has always been a gifted director in terms of his visual style – and blending special effects with everything else, so it becomes part of the movie, and does not overtake it. And this is one of his best visual achievements. The ship, and the planet, where most of the movie takes place are two distinctive visual environments. This movie is a visual triumph above all else – but the story and characters never take a back seat.

Prometheus may not be a movie like The Tree of Life, another movie that looks at humanity’s creation, but then Ridley Scott and Terrence Malick on working on different levels. What Prometheus is however is one of the most intelligent of all recent summer blockbusters. Yes, it has the action and the special effects to keep the masses happy – but there is something much more going on underneath the surface. You may not see a better blockbuster this summer.

Ranking Ridley Scott

2012 marks two significant milestones for 74 year director Ridley Scott – it marks the 35^th Anniversary of his first film, and the release of his 20^th feature over that time. That Scott is a master craftsman is beyond doubt – most of his films look fantastic. But looking over his entire filmography, it is tough to get a read on Scott as a director. He certainly isn’t an auteur – to me, his films are singular, and do not really add up to a cohesive statement as a whole. That isn’t a bad thing necessarily, and I certainly do look forward to each new Ridley Scott film – and his latest, Prometheus, out this week, is one of my most anticipated of the year. So in preparation for that, I thought I’d look back at his previous 19 films, from worst to best – and really I only like about half of them. I know already that many of my choices will be controversial, ranking some of his films much higher than most would, and many much lower. Anyway, here they are.

19. Someone to Watch Over Me (1987)

There is a reason why this 1987 would-be thriller has been all but forgotten – it is a film that simply goes through the motions, and is drowning in 1980s visual clichés. Tom Beranger stars as a cop whose job is to protect the lone witness to a mob hit – the beautiful, wealthy Mimi Rogers, who he cannot help but fall for, despite the fact he seems happily married to Lorraine Bracco. The plot makes little sense – the moves of the would-be killer make no sense, and there really is no connection between tough Beranger and beautiful but blank Mimi Rogers. The only performance with any passion is Bracco’s, but even she behaves somewhat irrationally. The movie has all the clichés of 1980s thrillers – the horrible score, the cheesy slow motion, and the sex scenes trying too hard to be erotic. There is no reason to see this stinker.

18. A Good Year (2006)

A Good Year is the dullest film of Scott’s career. The film set is Provence where a ruthless London commodities trader played by Russell Crowe rediscovers his humanity when he inherits his uncle’s estate. Yes, the film is gorgeous to look at – but anyone with a camera can make Provence look gorgeous. And while normally, I would enjoy spending two hours looking at the beautiful Abbie Cornish and the even more beautiful Marion Cottillard lounging around in the French countryside, the movie has no narrative flow, and the film needs a much lighter tone than Scott can give – or for that matter than Crowe can provide as the lead. The movie is quite simply a long, slow, dull slog.

17. Thelma and Louise (1991)

I know a lot of people, mostly women, love this movie – and far be it for me to tell them they’re wrong, but I down right hated Thelma and Louise. Don’t get me wrong, I think both Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon are in fine form in the lead roles. But to me, the movie makes little to no sense – I do not believe these women would go on their crime spree, I do not believe after the abuse and rape Davis suffers, that she would be so quick to have sex with Brad Pitt, and the ending is just plain stupid. All this doesn’t even mention that the film has dated badly in the past 21 years. To me, Thelma and Louise is an incredibly phony movie – one that I did not buy for a minute. If you love Thelma and Louise, then don’t let me spoil it for you, but I cannot stand it.

16. Legend (1985)

I really don’t know what to say about Legend – a demented fairy tale that somehow isn’t demented enough. The blank faced hero (Tom Cruise) is matched by the blank faced princess (Mia Sara), as together with a group of fairies and elves have to stop Darkness from killing two unicorns and therefore getting superb power. The visuals are often quite striking – and I am a sucker for Muppets, or at least puppets that bring to mind Muppets – but the story is so paper thin, and in the director’s cut stretched out far too long for its own good. I suppose Tim Curry is good fun as Darkness – but he really only shows up in the last 20 minutes – and by then, I just wanted the movie to end. Had the screenplay been better, could Scott have had a good movie out of this? Sure, but it wasn’t.

15. 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)

To commemorate 500 years since Christopher Columbus discovered the New World, there were two films in 1992 – Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (unseen by me) was widely considered a bomb – and Scott’s film not all that much better. The film is gorgeous to look at – Scott knows how to make an historical epic – but the story is long and slow. The scenes in Spain before the voyage are bogged down with too much boring talk – and the scenes in the New World lack any real flow. The biggest problem is that I don’t Scott knows what he thinks of Columbus – it’s all over the map and seems to change from scene to scene. Gerard Depardieu is a fine actor, but he is miscast as Columbus. At some point, Scott and his writers needed to decide what type of person Columbus really was – and because they didn’t, 1492 is a rather long, dull film.

14. Black Rain (1989)

Perhaps had I seen Black Rain closer to its release (when I was a pre-teen boy who loved action movies) I would have liked it more. As it stands, this was a movie I watched solely for the purpose of writing this post – and it justified by decision to not watch it for the past 23 years. It isn’t a bad 1980s action movie by any means – but it is one that makes little logical sense (why would New York send a Japanese gangster who just killed a bunch of people in their city back to Japan). The movie indulges in all the `80s action clichés you either love or hate – big hair (not on the women, but on star Michael Douglas), a maybe bad maybe good cop hero (Douglas), a cheesy score, slow motion in a scene where the hero`s partner is killed (accompanied of course, by him yelling `Nooooooooooooooo`), the hero delivering would be funny, tough sounding but really forced, one liners, and a final scene in an airport where two people smile at each other across a the crowded terminal. Yes, Black Rain is well made by the standards of the `80s action film, but there is a reason why Die Hard and Lethal Weapon are remembered, watched and loved even today – and Black Rain has been forgotten.

13. Gladiator (2000)

I am proud to say I am not one of those people who started bashing Gladiator only after it won the Best Picture and Actor Oscars in 2000 – I disliked the movie when I saw it in May of that year, and see no reason to change my opinion of it now. The best thing about the movie probably is Russell Crowe`s performance – he is appropriately tough and angry, and Joaquin Phoenix is pretty good as well as the petty Emperor. But Gladiator is such a miserable experience because Crowe`s character is so miserable from beginning to end – the whole damn movie, I was hoping someone would just kill him already to relieve him of his agony. True, you don’t need to have a happy character at the center of your movie, but he should at least be interesting – and he really wasn`t. Added to the this, the special effects looked like the belonged in a video game, not a movie (a major disappointment, considering Scott is usually so good at using them, AND the fact that they still somehow won an Oscar.) There are some good battle scenes but overall, I found Gladiator to be a fairly miserable slog.

12. Robin Hood (2010)

Robin Hood is one of the most famous, most filmed stories in history. The ultimate Robin Hood movie has always been, and probably always will be, the 1938 version starring Errol Flynn. But there have been other good versions of the story. When Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe teamed up (yet again) to make this one, they decided to make a more serious version – one that ends where most other stories of Robin Hood begin. By itself, that is not really a bad idea. The problem with this Robin Hood, is that the title character is rather dull and boring – and the rest of the cast has no depth and are even less interesting. I`m also not sure why anyone who was attracted to the Robin Hood story would try to make it into Braveheart. The battle sequences are well done, but there is little else in the movie that truly holds your interest. It`s not a bad movie by any means, but it certainly not very good either. The best way to describe the movie would be to say it is completely forgettable.

11. G.I. Jane (1997)

I know a lot of people didn’t really like G.I. Jane – they viewed it as a stunt by Demi Moore – then one of the biggest movie stars in the world, and a major sex symbol to bulk up physically and shave her head. And yet, the film is actually well made by Scott – who captures Navy SEALs training in all of its intensity and physicality, and surrounds Moore with interesting characters played Viggo Mortenson (as the drill instructor, a little more complicated than most), Scott Wilson (as the head of the program, who may be sexist, but tries to hide it) and Anne Bancroft as a Senator, who wants Moore to succeed for P.R. purposes. And it must be said that Moore, an actress I do not usually like, is actually very good in the movie – she is tough and driven, and plays the role as well as it could be played. Yes, the film tries to add in some plot twists and turns that do not really work, but overall G.I. Jane is a good, effective movie. Not great, but good.

10. White Squall (1996)

White Squall is clichéd, yes, but it is also fun, well-acted and brilliantly photographed and crafted. The story takes place in 1960, and involves a summer sailing journey for a group of troubled teenage boys, under the watchful eye of ship Captain Jeff Bridges. The purpose of the journey is to turn these troubled boys into men – and in many ways it does resemble Dead Poets Society on a boat. The boys are interchangeable in many ways and all the exact types you would expect to see on the boat. And yet, as clichéd as White Squall is, it is a fun adventure film – perhaps a little innocent and naïve, but effective. And the storm sequence climax is among the most exciting that Scott has ever filmed. White Squall may be pat and predictable, but it is also entertaining and extremely entertaining.

9. Body of Lies (2008)

Body of Lies feels more like a film that Scott`s brother Tony would direct instead of Ridley. It is a spy thriller-action movie, whose plot moves so quickly that you never really have time to think about it, and foregoes Ridley`s usual meticulous compositions for Tony`s rapid fire style editing and kinetic energy. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as a CIA agent stationed in Iran, before a mission goes wrong and he`s shipped off to Jordan. His boss is played by Russell Crowe (of course), who spends his entire role on the phone telling DiCaprio what to do. Both of these performances are strong – DiCaprio in his The Departed mode as a trapped animal, and Crowe having a blast, and getting to have a cruel streak at the same time. But the best performance belongs to Mark Strong, as the Jordanian official DiCaprio has to partner with – who is the strong, silent type, able to scare the crap out of you with just one glare. Body of Lies is an effective CIA thriller – fast moving and entertaining from start to finish. And unlike many directors, Scott actually uses the rapid fire editing style effectively. And yet, somehow the movie never quite reaches the level of greatness.

8. Hannibal (2001)

I know a lot of people hated Hannibal – but the biggest problem with the movie is that it is not as good The Silence of the Lambs (and few thrillers are) and Julianne Moore, while quite good here, is not as good as Jodie Foster in playing Clarice Starling (a performance pretty much impossible to top). And yet, I actually kind of love Hannibal – with it’s over the top violence, Gary Oldman`s wicked performance as a deformed man who may actually be more evil and cruel than Hannibal Lector, it`s ridiculous finale which makes no sense (as it made no sense in the book it was based on), and of course, Anthony Hopkins’ brilliant performance as Hannibal Lector. Hopkins gets that Hannibal is far more over the top and less serious than The Silence of the Lambs, and so he decides to go way over the top right along with it. Is Hannibal anything more than a guilty pleasure. I`m honestly not sure, but damn, if I don’t love it every time I see it.

7. The Duellists (1977)

Scott`s first film is perhaps the most beautiful he ever made. He says he was highly inspired by Stanley Kubrick`s masterpiece Barry Lyndon, made just two years before, and the highest compliment I can pay to the film is to say that at least visually, he earns that comparison (even if, obviously, his film still isn’t as gorgeous as Kubrick`s). The story centers on two officers in Napoleon’s army who have a long running feud. Keith Carradine is sent to give bad news to Harvey Keitel – he duelled someone he should not have, and will be confined to the barracks – and Keitel never forgives him for it – challenging him to a duel every time they meet over the years. The story is a little thin, and Keitel`s motivations are never clear. And yet, the film is still fascinating and expertly crafted. Watching this film, you had to know that Scott was a director to watch – that at the very least, he knew how to make a great looking film.

6. American Gangster (2007)

American Gangster sees drug dealing through economic terms – which the main character is a drug dealer isn’t really the point – it’s that he has a one track mind solely focused on making money. Played by Denzel Washington, he creates another villain, but not an over the top kind that one him an Oscar in Training Day. His drug kingpin in all cold, emotionless efficiency. The other side of the movie is represented by Russell Crowe as an incorruptible cop that also has a one track mind – taking down Washington. The movie is long – nearly three hours – but never boring. It is meticulously constructed by Scott, and screenwriter Steven Zallian, and perfectly cast – not just Washington and Crowe (who are both excellent) but the supporting cast – Chiwetal Ejifor, Cuba Gooding Jr., Josh Brolin and especially the legendary Ruby Dee (who received her only Oscar nomination for her role). This is a violent movie, but one that looks as crime as a business – as ruthless as Wall Street.

5. Matchstick Men (2003)

Out of all of Scott`s film, Matchstick Men is the one that you would really associate him with. It is completely different than the rest of his films – and perhaps that`s why I liked it so much. Unlike most of his films, Matchstick Men is intimate rather than epic. It centers on a con man with OCD, played by Nicholas Cage, who discovers that he has a teenage daughter (Alison Lohman). These three elements – a man struggling with mental illness, a con man film and a film about a man trying to connect with the daughter he never knew he had – makes Matchstick Men somewhat thrilling – it jumps between these three storylines, and yet the only enhance each other, not distract from it. This is one of the best performances of Cage`s career, and you Alison Lohman was also brilliant. This is an intimate character study first, and a con man movie second, and yet both elements work tremendously well. I have no idea what drew Scott to this film, but I`m glad he made it. Perhaps the most underrated film on his resume.

4. Kingdom of Heaven (Director`s Cut) (2005)

When I saw Kingdom of Heaven in theaters back in 2005, I liked it – I admired the skill at which it was assembled, and how unlike Gladiator, it had interesting, complex characters to go along with the great battle sequences – and yet, I thought something was missing to make it go from a good movie into a great one. When I finally sat down and watched the Director’s Cut last week – which added 45 minutes to the film, that Scott always wanted, but the studio made him cut because they wanted a shorter movie – I found what was missing. While the original felt rushed at times, the Director’s Cut takes its time, builds it characters and tells its story with more detail. Specifically, the movie adds more of Edward Norton’s brilliant performance (behind a mask no less) as the leper King, as well as fleshing out the son of Eva Green, who was set to be the next king. This movie tells a complex story about the crusades – one that doesn’t take sides, and sees men of all faiths (or none as the case may be) as good – and the ones on all sides who wants war as the bad guys. Orlando Bloom is fine in the lead role – but the cast around him are even better. If you’ve only ever seen the theatrical version, and thought it was good but not great, you should take out the director’s cut. It is the epic that Scott intended – and one of his very best films.

3. Alien (1979)

The first movie in the Alien series remains the best of the lot – and one of the best horror films of all time. Even after 30 years, this movie still looks great – the special effects are amazing, the cinematography is still a master class in darkness and the art direction great, both in large and small scale. Yes, we all know the “shock” moments in the films – yet they still have the ability to pack a wallop. However, it is the quieter moments where Alien is at its absolute best – the second half of the film is a master class in building tension to an almost unbearable degree. Alien is a throwback to the horror/sci-fi films of the 1950s, and yet also looks forward, and has become one of the most influential films of its time. Unfortunately, most of the movies it has inspired aren’t very good – they take the shocking moments, the bloody moments, but not the attention to detail, tone and pacing – or the very real characters that populate this movie. All these years later, Alien remains an absolute masterpiece.

2. Blade Runner (1982)

There is no doubt that Blade Runner is the most influential film of Scott’s career – and one of the most influential sci-fi films ever. For better or worse, science fiction movies have never been the same since Blade Runner was released. You’d also be hard pressed to find a more debated film – with fans passionately debating whether the hero, Deckard (Harrison Ford) is the sixth replicant mentioned at the beginning of the film but not dealt with during the course of the film, or if in fact he is human. I have read passionate defenses of both theories – and there will never be a definitive answer (I subscribe to the theory that he is, in fact, a replicant – but admit I could be wrong). Visually, the film is a masterwork – creating a world all of its own, that has been copied many times since, but rarely equalled (perhaps in Alex Proyas’ Dark City). The film is a masterpiece on several levels – and a film that I never get tired of watching. And although there are now about 5 different versions of the film, I respect the fact that Scott has resisted the urge to go all George Lucas on it – and allows Douglas Turnball’s magnificent special effects to stay. This film is a masterpiece – one of those films that you have to see – even if you hate it.

1. Black Hawk Down (2001)

This will probably seem like an odd choice to many as Scott’s masterpiece – sure both Alien and Blade Runner have had a much deeper, larger impact on the movie landscape in the years since they were made, and either would be very worthy of the top spot. But, for me, Black Hawk Down, is Scott’s best – the most intense movie he has ever made – and one of the most intense anyone has ever made. It focuses on a single day where a group of Marines raid a market in Somalia looking for the rebel leader – and becoming bogged down, surrounded by a city who wants to kill them, and a firefight that lasts for hours. The film is as bloody and violent as any war movie you’ve seen, and some have criticized the movie because the rebel’s forces really are nothing more than a blur – and an African blur at that. But to me, that’s just the point. These marines are surrounded by the enemy – anyone could kill them, everyone could be an enemy. The movie does utilize the shaky, handheld camera and rapid fire editing that has become vogue in the last decade – and yet the movie is never confusing – you always know precisely where you are and what is happening. As a movie about a mission gone wrong, Black Hawk Down is as intense as it gets – for two and half hours it keeps you in its grip. So no, Black Hawk Down is not the movie most would choose as Scott’s best – but to me, it is his greatest achievement.

Movie Review: Robin Hood

Robin Hood ** ½
Directed by: Ridley Scott.
Written By: Brian Helgeland and Ethan Reiff & Cyrus Voris.
Starring: Russell Crowe (Robin Longstride), Cate Blanchett (Marion Loxley), Max von Sydow (Sir Walter Loxley), William Hurt (William Marshal), Mark Strong (Godfrey), Oscar Isaac (Prince John), Danny Huston (King Richard The Lionheart), Eileen Atkins (Eleanor of Aquitaine), Mark Addy (Friar Tuck), Matthew Macfadyen (Sheriff of Nottingham), Kevin Durand (Little John), Scott Grimes (Will Scarlet), Alan Doyle (Allan A'Dayle), Douglas Hodge (Sir Robert Loxley), Léa Seydoux (Isabella of Angoulême), Robert Pugh (Baron Baldwin), Gerard McSorley (Baron Fitzrobert).

I was going to start out this review by saying that Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe needed to lighten up a bit – but then I remember when they tried to do just that and the result was A Good Year – perhaps the worst film either of them have ever been involved with. Besides, there is nothing inherently mistaken with trying to make Robin Hood more serious than his other cinematic outings – the approach worked for Christopher Nolan in the Batman movies. The real problem here is that Robin Hood is a dull, boring character – and since no real attempt is made to give any of the other characters much more than a one note personality – the film is just as dull and boring as he is. It is admittedly well made, with some great action sequences, but a movie needs more than that to be successful.

This version of Robin Hood starts much earlier than any other cinematic outing that I can recall – in fact it ends, right where most of those movies begin. Robin Longstride (Crowe) is coming back from the Crusades following his King Richard – The Lionheart (Danny Huston) when all hell breaks loose. Richard is killed in battle, and Crowe and his “Merry Men” – Little John (Kevin Durand), Will (Scott Grimes) and Allan (Alan Doyle) take off back to England, only to stumble upon the traitor Godfrey (Mark Strong) killing what he thinks is the King’s party, in an effort to make his childhood friend Prince John (Oscar Issac), the King of England – but only so it will make it easier for the French to take over. Robin and his men foil the plot and disguise themselves as Knights in order to bring the Crown back to England and get a reward, which they do. But Robin made a promise to the dying Knight who held the crown that he would return his sword to his father – Walter Loxley (Max von Sydow), in Nottingham, and he cannot break a promise. When he gets there, he discovers Nottingham stricken by poverty because of the taxes – taxes which John plans to raise – and Loxley convinces him to pretend to be his dead son – much to the chagrin of his widow, Marion (Cate Blanchett). And so the events of the film are set in motion.

Robin Hood has one of the best ensemble casts that you could imagine being assembled. Crowe is a usually capable lead, who excels at playing driven, moral men who do the right thing even when it is not easy. That describes this version of Robin Hood pretty well – he doesn’t like the responsibilities thrust upon him, but cannot turn away. Yet the screenplay doesn’t give Crowe much to work with – he is drawn in broad strokes, with little complexity and as a result, he’s rather boring to watch. Cate Blanchett plays one of those spunky heroines, and she does a decent job given what she has to work with. Yet, she shares absolutely no chemistry with Crowe – we perhaps start to believe that she no longer hates him, right at the time they are declaring their love for each other. Because their relationship doesn’t work, we are left with a gaping hole in the emotional connections in the film.

The supporting cast does what it can – but given their caliber, we keep expecting them to get a breakout scene that never seems to come. William Hurt, Danny Huston, Max von Sydow, Mark Strong, Matthew McFadyen and Eileen Atkins are all fine actors – but none of them are really given a chance to shine. They make a few nice speeches, but they never become fully functioning characters – just pawns for the plot to move around as it pleases. The best performance in the movie comes from Oscar Issac as the petulant, ungrateful new King who seems absolutely outraged that people will not just bow down and his do his bidding on his command. And I must admit that I enjoyed Robin’s “Merry Men” Durand, Grimes and Doyle, who are later joined by Mark Addy’s Friar Tuck. At the very least, they seem to be having a great time, and provide some much needed comic relief. No, they are really written, or performed, any better than anyone else, but at least they’re fun to watch.

Ridley Scott is an expert craftsman, as he has shown time and again over the course of his career. His movies for the most part all look great (strangely, I think that the Oscar winning Gladiator, with its horrid special effects, is an exception). He knows how to stage action sequences, and large scale battle sequences with the best of them, and the movie has some doozies littered throughout, and climaxes with the best of the lot. It is bloody and brutal, and yet forgoes the usual kinetic visual and editing style that make many modern action sequences nearly unwatchable. As he proved with Kingdom of Heaven, among others, he knows how to do these battles with the best of them and he certainly succeeds in that here.

Having said that, Scott is a director whose films either rise or fall based on the material he is provided, and what the actors can bring to their roles. He isn’t among the best directors of his generation simply because he never seems to put his own stamp on the movies, his own feeling. Any depth in his films is provided by the screenplay and the actors, and Scott excels when he has great material to work with, which he brings out wonderfully well. But in a movie like Robin Hood, all that is missing because the characters are not well defined, and we end up not really caring what happens to any of them. Had Scott and company decided to follow the lead of the 1938 Errol Flynn masterpiece The Adventures of Robin Hood (still the best Robin Hood film ever made by far), and kept the movie light and fun, he may have been able to plaster over the lack of depth in the film. But they decided to make this a serious movie – a Robin Hood movie that wants to be more like Braveheart than anything else – and because they did, Robin Hood ultimately fails.