Robin Hood
Universal Pictures | Release Date: May 14, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
53
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 40 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
15
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Every era gets the Robin Hood it needs…Now director Ridley Scott and writer Brian Helgeland have given us an intelligent, layered story suited to our grim, patience-trying times. Read full review
88
New York PostLou Lumenick
Head and shoulders above the sort of lightheaded epics Hollywood typically offers during the summer season. Read full review
80
Boxoffice MagazinePete Hammond
The entire cast is superb. Crowe's an ideal Robin Hood-born to play the role-he's fully in command but human to the core. He owns it. Read full review
80
EmpireDan Jolin
Grown-up but not too serious; action-packed but not juvenile… Not only is this the mullet-free Robin Hood movie we’ve been waiting decades for, it’s also Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe at their most entertaining since Gladiator. Read full review
80
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Scott has an eye -- and it's a very good one -- for sieges of castles, charging horsemen, hand-to-hand combat, glistening swords arcing through the air and deadly arrows whistling toward helpless targets. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy Burr
This Robin Hood is mostly a smart, muscular entertainment; it doesn’t breathe new life into a genre as did “Gladiator,’’ Scott’s first pairing with Russell Crowe, but it’s a brawny reimagining of a beloved old myth, a period popcorn movie turned out with professionalism and gusto. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
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 Read full review
75
Orlando SentinelRoger Moore
A dark and brawny version of the Robin Hood legend that anchors itself in English history and loses some of the merriment in the process. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Scott's reimagining of the legend of Robin Hood has more heft than it does humor, more soulful brooding than snappy thrust-and-parry retorts. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
What this Robin Hood lacks in fun it makes up for in epic sweep. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Scott removed the adventure aspect, and some of the movie's passion was lost, too, like a dolphin caught in a tuna net. Perhaps it's for that reason that a movie that starts out with the potential to be great somehow falls short, and what seems as if it's going to be a revelation ends up, instead, simply a worthwhile, reasonably interesting variation on an old theme. Read full review
75
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike Scott
Still, it's not the iconic, be-all-end-all that Scott was certainly hoping for. Read full review
70
VarietyJustin Chang
Impressively made and serious-minded to a fault, this physically imposing picture brings abundant political-historical dimensions to its epic canvas, yet often seems devoted to stifling whatever pleasure audiences may have derived from the popular legend. Read full review
70
Arizona RepublicBill Goodykoontz
Scott's epic - and it's hard to think of anything this big, this elaborate and, no doubt, this expensive as anything but - is very much an origination story, a prequel, if you will. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
As in so many summer behemoths, the real stars are the projectiles--in this case, arrows with their own point-of-view shots, zipping through the air and finding their targets with pinpoint accuracy. Read full review
70
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
Despite its abundant flaws and historical howlers and generally dimwitted tone, Robin Hood is a surprisingly enjoyable work of popcorn cinema, if you're willing to take it on its own terms. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
Scott’s is the story of how Robin Longstride (and, no, that’s not a name made up by Mel Brooks), an archer in Richard the Lionheart's last Crusade, became Robin of the Hood, the wily defender of the overtaxed people of Nottingham. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Williams
A lot of care went into crafting the handsome production but not enough into making the handsome hero come alive. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
If this truly is Ridley Scott's preferred cut, he has proven unable to justify the existence of yet another Robin Hood film. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
The problem with Russell Crowe's new take on the legend is that it has one muddy boot in history and the other in fantasy. The middling result is far from a bull's-eye. Read full review
60
SlateDana Stevens
Pretty much ill-conceived from the ground up but saved by a couple of strong performances and a wealth of well-researched period detail. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua Rothkopf
Can they really be setting up a sequel at the end, with Robin as an outlaw? Let’s hope so--that’s the movie you actually wanted. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Image for image and shot for shot, Scott is still one of the most striking directors around, but in Robin Hood, the cohesive particles keeping those images together--frills like a compelling plot and sculpted characters--prove unstable. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
There’s quality throughout, but, visual verve aside, the enterprise is dull, heavy-handed and dispiriting. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
A high-tech and well made violent action picture using the name of Robin Hood for no better reason than that it’s an established brand not protected by copyright. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
Still, there are some things to savor. Blanchett is an actress who's always involving, and Crowe is very much in his element as an intrepid, laconic archer who lets his arrows do the talking. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
If only the story were leaner and more nimble -- but then again this is a Ridley Scott film, so you go in expecting bombast and bloat in the service of leaden themes. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Cate Blanchett brings little but an arch toughness to the role of Marion, and, in a highly improbably climactic scene, proves herself a veritable knight. Crowe and Blanchett share a perfunctory romance, with few sparks. Read full review
50
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
Except for the last five minutes, Robin Hood is the story of the radicalization of some guy named Longstride. Who? Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The battles are grainy and ''existential,'' but what they aren't is thrilling. They're surging crowd scenes with streams of arrows and flecks of blood, and Crowe, slashing his way through them, is a glorified extra. He's so grimly possessed with purpose that he's a bore, and so is the movie. Read full review
42
Tampa Bay TimesSteve Persall
A distinct lack of merriment marks each frame of this film, with Scott determined to erase all fond memories of past Robin Hoods. Read full review
42
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
I much prefer Mel Brooks’s “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” to all this doomy somberness. Why take the legend so seriously? Read full review
40
Village VoiceKarina Longworth
The directorial choices are, for the most part, so lazy, the blockbuster engineering so blatant, that Robin Hood often falls into self-parody. All the more reason for Sarah Palin to love it. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
He's (Crowe) thwarted by the production's almost total, and truly absurd, absence of fun. Read full review
38
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Certainly a grand-looking picture. For a film that's filled with CGI effects, there wasn't a single shot that looked artificial, and the production design is tremendous. But it's a hollow, boring spectacle. Read full review
38
PremiereJohn DeVore
The movie suffers from convoluted plots, turgid pacing, and strange disrespect for its source material. Read full review
35
MovielineStephanie Zacharek
A moneygrubbing extravaganza, ugly to look at and interminable to sit through. No movie about the evils of excessive taxation should be this taxing. Read full review
30
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
All is dour and dun. We are a long way from Errol Flynn marching in with a deer slung over his shoulder, or from the Fairbanks who didn’t merely scamper and swing from one errand of justice to the next. He SKIPPED. Read full review
25
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Rick Groen
Damned if those dual spoilsports, the gladiatorial director Ridley Scott reteamed with his portly star Russell Crowe, haven't drained every drop of merriment right out of the myth. Read full review
20
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood is a pompous, interminable hash. Read full review
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