Beyond Sherwood Forest (2009)

Oh, come on, it wasn't THAT bad!! Anyone who reads the story and sees the stills on the cover of this DVD, cannot seriously expect a Steven Spielberg blockbuster or a Shakespeare or any Oscar-winning material. Here you get exactly what you CAN expect: a far-fetched but amusing sci-fi version of an otherwise pretty worn-out theme, with which I seriously enjoyed myself for one and a half hour. Sure, the script was unbalanced and full of potholes, some of the English accents were crooked and the direction and editing were often awkward, to put it mildly. But it also had much to go for it. To begin with, the acting was over-all pretty good. I didn't have any trouble with Robin Dunne as Robin Hood, I liked him, maybe he's no dashing Erroll Flynn or a deeply involved Kevin Costner, but he's cute enough and what he lacks in sheer heroism, is compensated by a boyish, tongue-in-cheek-like charm that worked well enough for me. Erica Durance is my favorite actress from the Smallville-series and as a rather emancipated version of Maid Marian she did a great job. Contrary to some reports here on IMDb I do think she's a solid actress, she has a very natural and down-to-earth way of acting which to me is very appealing, and apart from being absolutely beautiful to look at, she's also spicy and funny and her fighting skills (as in Smallville) are awesome. Julian Sands may have played his Sheriff of Nottingham a bit over the top, but that fitted the character fine. And David Richmond-Peck gave, in the limited space he got, a chilling performance of a devious and menacing Prince John. I only had troubles with Katherina Isabelle as the bewitched girl Alina, she seemed to think that her character's inner turmoils could be best shown by looking like a frightened rabbit all of the time. The settings and the costumes were great and the CGI was (for this kind of non-pretentious film) surprisingly convincing: the dragon was top-notch, not only visually and in it's own movements but also in the interaction with the actors, everything looked very realistic. The script and the storyline were the weakest parts of this production. I can live with a transplantation of Robin Hood to the realms of Fantasy (why not? Robin Hood is a legendary fantasy-figure to begin with!), but it all could have made a little bit more sense - now we were more or less drowned under a hotchpotch of Tolkien-like tids and bits, like a dragon that's really a cursed young lady, a mysterious Dark Forrest, some equally mysterious Keepers of the Trees, etcetera, etcetera. The dragon at least had a function throughout the whole story, but what on earth these bold weirdo's in the Dark Forest were doing in the movie was beyond me, in spite of their (over)long explanation to the (understandibly) baffled Robin and his comrades. The funny thing is, that they lived in some extremely secret dark place, but the portal to this place - a fluorescent version of the Stargate entrance to other dimensions - seemed to stand for ever wide open and in full view of everyone strolling through Sherwood Forest (there must have been hundreds of poor souls who have stumbled-in accidentally, when coming back from the local pub!). The whole section of Robin and his two friends searching the Dark Forrest was totally superfluous to the story and a waste of time. The story-line of the dragon being actually a cursed girl was okay as a premise, but the whole explanation behind it was way too complicated and far-fetched, and as to how the Sheriff (as far as we are made to understand he wasn't a magician or anything), was able to rip out her heart and stall it away, they didn't even bother to explain (probably because they hadn't got a clue themselves!). But on the whole I was pretty well entertained. So I rank it 7 out of 10.

There are four reasons to watching this film-- the CGI were-dragon, Katherine Isabelle as Alina the were-dragon, the CGI wolf-lions, and Erica Durance as Marian. The were-dragon sequences are incredibly well done and very realistic. The creature's design is distinctive, with a body like a winged puma. The transformations are very well done, limited only by Katherine Isabelle's refusal to do more than bare her shoulders or back for scenes where she should be nude. The animators get around this fairly well although it is obviously the nude Alina at the beginning of the transformation is a Poserette. Katherine Isabelle, who played the title character from the GINGER SNAPS series, is great at playing troubled, distressed, terminally sad characters. She's right up her alley here. She really does steal the film with her portrayal of the tragic Alina. Okay, her refusal to do nude scenes did limit the filmmakers somewhat. In scenes where she is ostensibly nude and vulnerable, Miss Isabelle is only shown from the shoulders up. The filmmakers couldn't afford to pay for her usual body double? The lion-like wolves in "Beyond" section of Sherwood Forest are quite believable as well. They are a nicely executed hybrid of natural wolf and magical hell-beast. Their interaction with their would-be human victims is spot-on. Erica Durance..... anything from her post-Smallville debut is worth watching just for a chance to watch her. She gets a few action scenes in, either practicing on a helpless dummy or fighting the were-dragon Alina. And she looks great in a medieval pantsuit.Bad points? Robin Dunne, Robin Dunne, and Robin Dunne. He was at best phoning in his performance. Apparently no one taught him how to believably fire an arrow. The few times you see him fire an arrow, it is obvious the arrow only flew a dozen feet before dropping to the floor. All in all, there was no reason to call this "Robin Hood" aside from the chance to skip over explaining who these various characters were. Friar Tuck for example shows up, talks to Robin and Marian a little, then gets killed. By calling him "Friar Tuck" the filmmakers spared themselves the five minutes or so of screen time they'd've needed to set him up as an original character.

I don't have any new Simon Cowell to add, so I'll only go into depth about what was good about this film: not a whole heck of a lot, but it was batting 1.000 when the guy came up with the idea. (I'm really interested in this genre since Origin Systems stopped producing Ultima) That idea was that a young woman who comes from another world (a murky one at that!) is somehow cursed for breaking a law and spends part of her day as a winged monster. A cynical government-actor captures her to use her as a weapon. This story is woven into a Robin Hood one. (How that last part works, I don't know, but I guess someone else does.) Unfortunately, the movie kept putting me to sleep (figuratively) so I missed some of the finer points of the plot.The acting and English accents have a serious credibility problem, the dialogue isn't exactly chancy, and sometimes the seams show on the CGI. I don't think the plot was executed in a very good way either. There was a romantic dimension, but that looked like they remembered to throw it in at the last minute.There are a couple of things that I can respect a movie like this for: one is that it didn't have a lot of silly modern slang (the worst was a single "a little help"). Also, while Katharine Isabelle does show a lot of skin, there is no bona fide nudity (possibly because Isabelle refuses to do any). A movie like this should be going for such cheap thrills, but it doesn't. Good for it!I wish it was Steven Spielberg who'd gotten ahold of this idea. I think it would have made a fine story, but instead what we have is typical Canadian B.

I watched this movie for about thirty minutes and had to change the channel. Calling this movie Robin Hood with a dragon is being nice. I have seen bad movies, but this is one of the worst. Perhaps the best part of this movie was the fact that Maid Marion was a strong, independent woman instead of being a helpless damsel in distress. I did not understand the point of putting a shape-shifting dragon in the movie. Robin Hood was a good enough story without the monster. I also did not understand why they made Robin Hood a lousy archer. The whole point is that Robin Hood is supposed to be the world's best archer. Perhaps this movie would be a good cure for insomnia, but I'm not willing to watch it long enough to find out. Too bad "1" is the lowest rating you can give a movie in these reviews, because this movies deserves a much lower review than that. Do not waste your time with this movie. If you can't find anything better on television, read a book.