LogFAQs > #930755671

Sorry to bump a dead topic, but this movie has been on my mind.

It hits all of the necessary notes -- aside from having a skinny Friar Tuck who doesn't drink -- but there's just something that's missing. Robin and Marian are fairly shallow characters as far as any sort of character depth is concerned. The film's focus is on Jamie Foxx, but the filmmakers didn't want to go all "Adventures of the Sidekick" and have him be the one to defeat the bad guys while Robin Hood sat in the corner.

So, while the action sequences go to Robin Hood, Little John is the emotional center of the film. Robin Hood himself really only has agency in one scene and that's the one where he goes against Little John and attempts to rob the treasury. This creates a problem in that the one saving the day isn't the character we actually care about in the movie.

I think this movie would've been better if they had made Jamie Foxx the star and just made it an original property centering on a Muslim hero trying to stop the crusades rather than trying to tie the story into Robin Hood. It would have garnered more media attention and would've allowed greater freedom. It would have also been a much stronger film as the character whose story arc we cared about would've been the man who was front and center.

This is just one of those films that really makes me stop and think about the filmmaking process in general.