Admittedly, the fact that I used “prequel” like that in the headline should probably get me shot by the National Grammar Association, but sometimes things like grammar have to be sacrificed to make excellent points.  And that’s exactly what we’re getting with Robin Hood, which just hit theaters today.

While most Robin Hoods focused on Robin’s career as an outlaw, this one goes back really far, to the beginning of the whole mess.  Robin Longstride, a common archer in Richard the Lionheart’s army, has just managed to get his way back to England from the Crusades following the death of Richard.  Through a clever series of dodges and lies, Robin manages to desert the army and witness the beginnings of a French plot to conquer England.  Fulfilling a deathbed (more like death-ground, really) obligation to return the sword of a fallen nobleman to his father, Robin heads for Nottingham to discharge his duty.  But once he returns, he discovers that the plot goes a whole lot deeper than anyone really saw coming, and thus Robin, now of Loxley, finds himself immersed in a plot to save England from both the machinations of the French crown and the sheer feckless greed of its new king, John.

It’s a little complex, I admit, but it’s done very well and paced very nicely.  Russell Crowe turns in a fantastic performance as the lead and any movie that’s got Max Von Sydow in it automatically gets bonus points from me.  The movie could be the most unimaginably bad drivel ever but I’d still call it halfway decent if it had the Sydow in it.   After seeing him in Needful Things, I can’t read the book without hearing every bit of Leland Gaunt’s dialogue in his voice.

Sure, Robin Hood is pretty predictable–you’ve already seen it so many times that you have a pretty good idea of what will happen by the end of it.  The chance of Robin dying at any point is pretty much nil because you know full well that that’s not what happens.  And I’ll also say that this iteration of Robin Hood is a lot more blunt than previous versions–where the earlier ones focused on Robin’s career as a guerilla / outlaw, this one shows more how it all came about, thus there’s a lot more military action and a whole lot less ambush.

But still, despite the predictability of the plot (unavoidable by its sheer nature) and its decreased subtlety (again, necessary), Robin Hood still turns out to be a worthwhile addition to the canon.  The Screenhead Ten Scale cheers for the rogue and hands over an eight out of ten for a job well done, but not spectacularly.