Directed by Ridley Scott

Hurray, here comes Robin Hood... or somebody. Because the Robin we have here isn't Robin of Loxley at all, but a yeoman longbowman called Robin Longstride who takes up the alias of the dead lord when he brings his sword home to the family. And - wait a minute - someone's shot Richard the Lionheart dead in the first twenty minutes too. So what are the oppressed populace to yearn for if good king Richard is never coming home? The Sheriff of Nottingham is just a minor role, usurped in the nastiness stakes by gleaming-headed traitor Godfrey (Mark Strong), Marian's not a maid, and the only people occupying the Greenwood are a band of Notts orphans who've gone all Lord of the Flies, making life hell (well, more hell than usual) for the struggling villagers.

Ridley Scott's given us yet a further twist on the RH story, this time mixing in more (rather dodgy) history, and producing a kind of Robin Begins. Hence more full-scale battles, more swooping cameras raking the countryside, all the things he's good at, but somehow, compared to the vigour of Robin's last big screen outing as Prince of Thieves, it feels very tired. As did I, after nearly two and a half hours of Russell Crowe doing his noble Gladiator type, and Cate Blanchett her feisty woman, and a succession of confusing fights where both sides looked the same. But when your heart's saying, at yet another brilliantly staged set piece battle - oh, was it worth all this bother? - then you know something isn't working. I found myself more interested in a) the paraphernalia of medieval siege warfare, b) wondering where that beautiful bit of coast is - (Ireland, I guessed - wrong -it's mostly Pembrokeshire), and c) worrying terribly about dear Scott Grimes as Will Scarlett, with his Celtic fringe accent that only settled into the intended Welsh when he had more than one sentence to say. What on earth is ER's lovely Dr Morris doing in chain mail?

There's some pleasure is in spotting well-known faces behind those beards and medieval headgear. Danny Huston is a surprise as King Richard, and who should Robin find as Loxley's Nottinghamshire dad but Max von Sydow? William Hurt outdoes all those foreigners, antipodean and transatlantic, with his measured aristocratic tones, as William the Marshal. Matthew Macfadyen is totally underused as the Sheriff of Nottingham ( a sign that a sequel is on the cards), and if you read the cast list to the end you'll see that Steve Evets, once of The Fall and last seen starring in Looking for Eric, plays ‘Ragged Messenger'.

A bit like Antoine Fuqua's 2004 revisionist take on King Arthur, it's good in a way to have a fresh angle on an old legend - but making Robin's dad the man who drafted Magna Carta really is a step too far. That film at least had a rather dotty élan (and Ray Winstone) which carried it along. This is all a bit of a dour, bloodless affair, with a creaking script wavering unconvincingly between Hollywood medieval-speak and straight-talking modern, and extremely short on humour - but then I was brought up on the Richard Greene knockabout TV version. It tries hard to give a serious portrayal of the chaotic state of England at the time, even if it does mean messing with the chronology. I was feeling quite pleased that King John seemed to be given the fair hearing he deserves after the bad press he's had since Shakespeare, until.... How wrong can you be.

So, as we leave a set of happy campers in Sherwood, there's the sinking feeling that we've only just started with the proper Robin tale, and there must be more to come - let's hope it's merrier.

Seen at the Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle, 15 May 2010