Kerry Brown / Universal Pictures
Early reviews for Robin Hood aren’t pulling any punches: Todd McCarthy, former Variety critic now at indieWire, writes that Ridley Scott's movie is “neither as good as the director’s personal best period epic, Gladiator, nor a match for Hollywood’s most memorable previous accounts of the beneficent bandit of Sherwood Forest.” McCarthy pans the film, arguing that though “there are no better actors one could imagine” for the roles Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett play, “the predictably programmed progress of the relationship prevents even Crowe and Blanchett from doing a whole lot with it.” Hopefully someone won’t tell Crowe—the excitable actor had said that Scott’s Hood “has got to be the best one ever done, otherwise I should be doing something else.” Robin Hood will kick off the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday.