The 63rd edition of the Cannes Film Festival opened on May 12, 2010. The opening film was director Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood, which premiered to mixed reviews.
Starring Russell Crowe as the eponymous hero, and Cate Blanchett as Maid Marion, the hotly anticipated action flick goes where several recent big-budget movies (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Batman Begins, Hannibal Rising) have gone before: back to the beginning. In this telling of the famous tale, Scott takes us to 12th-century England where we find out how archer Robin Longstride, recently returned from the Crusades, became the legendary outlaw Robin Hood who took from the rich to give to the poor.
Crowe is a convincingly rugged warrior, and occasionally inspiring leader-in-the-making, but he fails to recapture the Oscar-winning glory of Gladiator. The versatile and nuanced Blanchett is given too little to get her acting chops around, and despite satisfyingly gritty battle scenes and luscious Medieval scenery, the movie lacks a certain je ne sais quoi that would make it truly engaging.
Greed Is (Still) Good
Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) uttered the one-liner ‘greed is good’ in Oliver Stone’s iconic 1987 movie Wall Street. Despite the economic chaos of the last two years, greed is still good, if you believe the characters in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Twenty-three years after the original, Stone’s follow-up premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 14, and the timing is perfect. The movie, however, is not.
The main problem with it is that Michael Douglas, who reprises his Oscar-winning role as the New York stockbroker, just released from an eight-year stint in prison, does not appear on screen for large chunks of the movie.
This could have been to make room for a new generation of characters, aimed at attracting younger viewers and not just fans of the original. These include Shia LaBeouf (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen; Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) as Jacob Moore, a young, ambitious stockbroker, and upcoming British actress Carey Mulligan as his love interest Winnie and, the twist in the tale, Gordon Gekko’s estranged daughter.
‘Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps’ Star Cast
Also in the star line-up is Frank Langella as Lewis Zabel, a bank boss who commits suicide when his bank goes under and LaBeouf’s mentor, and Josh Brolin as alpha male Bretton James whose dodgy dealings are responsible for bringing the bank down.
These additional characters serve to dilute Wall Street’s plot rather than strengthen it – there is just not time even in a longer-than-normal 130-minute film to flesh them all out. This is not helped by the fact that Stone himself makes several inexplicable cameos and Charlie Sheen, who played Bud Fox in the original, pops up at a fundraising dinner.
‘The Tree’ Cannes 2010 Closing Film
The festival will conclude with Julie Bertuccelli’s The Tree, an adaptation of Judy Pascoe’s novel Our Father Who Art in the TreeThe film stars Charlotte Gainsbourg, who took home the Best Actress award for her role in Lars von Trier’s controversial Antichrist at last year’s festival, Marton Csokas and Aden Young. Whether this movie fares better with critics will be revealed on May 23 when it screens at the closing ceremony.
Cecily Layzell - Cecily Layzell is a food and travel writer and founder of restaurant review site www.eat-amsterdam.com.
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