Crowe: 'Past Robin Hoods unrealistic'

Robin Hood actor Russell Crowe has criticised previous movie versions of the story as being impractical and unrealistic.

The star dismissed a number of adaptations as speculating too much about the Nottingham outlaw, without basing the story in history, in an interview with Canal Plus Le Grand Journal, quoted in NME.

Crowe particularly disliked Kevin Costner's 1991 Prince Of Thieves, describing the film as being "like a Jon Bon Jovi video". Gladiator director Ridley Scott, he said, will "take a fresh look" at the story.

Moving onto Errol Flynn's 1938 classic, he said: "The practicality of going through an English forest, with all its coarse bushes and bramble and all that, in green tights? Not very practical now, is it?"

He then described Mel Brooks's 1993 parody Robin Hood: Men In Tights as "the most entertaining" version, but added: "Again, it examines the same exact clichés as all the other films that wrap the legend up and throw it away. And once Mel Brooks has had a go at it, it's time to wipe the slate clean."

Speaking more generally, Crowe said that: "Past filmmakers and studios have 'supposed' things about Robin Hood."

His version, however, "depicts the origins, where he might actually have come from".

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