A Tale of Three ROBIN HOODs

The title of this blog is, as you may observe, Tony Scott's Only Fan. As such, I find myself obligated to follow a sort of self-mandated mission statement of sorts, which consists of the following three general guidelines:

1) Acknowledge Tony Scott's awesomeness at all times.

2) Work in as many references to Tony's extended filmography as humanly possible.

3) Viciously attack Ridley Scott as an overrated hack, so that one day in the distant future someone will say, "Oh, Tony Scott's brother?" when discussing the director of ALIEN, BLADE RUNNER, and 1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE.

Which brings us to ROBIN HOOD, Ridley's regrettable attempt to work once again in the historical film genre. To adequately present my disdain for the film, I give you the following compare-and-contrast chart between Ridley's ROBIN HOOD, the 1973 Disney take, and Mel Brooks' ROBIN HOOD: MEN IN TIGHTS.

	Robin Hood (‘73)	Men In Tights	Robin Hood (‘10)
Portrayal of Robin Hood	Precocious fox with a death wish – the clear winner	Cary Elwes – mostly reacting to things and grimacing.	Russell Crowe, mumbling and generally unkempt
Historical Accuracy	Who gives a fuck when it’s this entertaining? Plus there’s that whole minstrel rooster thing to add a subjective cop-out	Dave Chappelle playing a man with rights, freedoms	Who gives a fuck when it’s this boring?
Soundtrack	“Oo-de-lally, oo-de-lally, golly what a day”	Mel Brooks-written raps	Marc Streitenfeld doing a passable Hans Zimmer impression
Most Memorable Line	“It appears that I now have an outlaw for an inlaw”	“King illegal forest to pig wild kill in it a is!”	“Rise and rise, until lambs become lions”
Most Disturbing Moment	Cross-dressing bear stuffs money into bra, encourages cat-calls.	Cross-dressing Robert Downey Jr. lookalike moving fake breast around on chest.	When I paid $4.50 to see this, then another $3 in late fees.
Maid Marion	A fox who plays badminton – TOO SOON.	Is Peggy from THE MASK.	Cate Blanchett, since it is in her contract to play these roles.
Merry Men	Very few to be seen, other than a bunch of kids that tag along and are given lethal weapons by Robin.	Chorus line drunkards – probably the most accurate portrayal.	Not really any to be seen, unless you want to count that kid wearing a rabbit on his face.
Coherent Political Philosophy?	Borderline anarchist – Robin appears to like King Richard, but despise most of the principles of government	None on evidence.	Main belief appears to be “Everyone can unite against the French”, but there’s also some token equality-of-men stuff.
Burning Castles?	Hells yes!	Sadly, no.	Does a drawbridge count?
Bryan Adams?	No	Nope	No, but there is that dude from Great Big Sea.
Most Badass Moment of Archery	Splitting one arrow with another	Sadly misguided attempt at missile defence commentary combined with an attempt to explain where The Wave came from.	Ummm… he shoots a guy in the back? OH, BUT IN SLOW MOTION.
The Bottom Line	Gets the Robin Hood mythos	The best jokes are from other Mel Brooks movies	Is not, in fact, the Robin Hood mythos and tells a story no one wants to see.

THE A-TEAM Wants To Be A Tony Scott Movie So Bad

The opening three minutes of Joe Carnahan's hey-we-haven't-remade-every-'80s-property-yet project, THE A-TEAM, had me convinced that I was about to fall in love.

First, there was the Scott Free Production tag. Y'all know what that means, right? My boy Tony Scott had his hands all over this! Or possibly his hack brother. But then came the subtitles, and I became convinced that Tony had come up to Mr. Carnahan at some point and said, "Joe, you know what would be great? If the subtitles mimicked the actors' delivery and we made the word 'blood' appear in red. Blood red. Get it?" To which Joe Carnahan could only drop to his knees and thank Tony for his unrivaled cinematic genius, while Ridley went off and moped about the Robin Hood opening week gross. And then, after the DOMINO-esque subtitle display made me giddy with neo-impressionistic joy, they went and blasted The Game's "House of Pain" on the soundtrack.

Friends, it was at this point that I seriously re-evaluated my expectations for this film. To be honest, I've never seen the show, but it sounds like a redneck version of Mission: Impossible, and my expectations were somewhere around a Brett Ratner Level (a BRL, for those hip to the acronym game). But Tony Scott-inspired visuals and a hip-hop soundtrack? I began to suspect that this film may have been made just for me.

Sadly, Jessica Biel shows up and there's a oddly dated "Three Kings"-ish inspired subplot and Carnahan decides to go to full-out cartoon mode in the third act, and you end up with something that, while certainly not at BRLs of disappointment, is nowhere near the frenzied delirium of a Tony Scott film.

THE A-TEAM does have one remarkable sequence, where the squad jumps out of a plane in a tank when they're shot down, only to have the tank shot down as well. The scene is full of tension, humour, and some insane action beats. There's also some fun stuff with the CIA characters in the film that recalls the more madcap moments of Carnahan's earlier effort, SMOKIN' ACES.

But at the end of it, I just wanted to see a Tony Scott version of this. Or THE LOSERS, which I liked better.