There are two things people tend to do when discussing the new Robin Hood film. The first is compare it with Robin’s last big screen outing in "Prince of Thieves", a film I’ve not seen. My Robin Hood frame of reference is the recent – and much missed – TV series with Jonas Armstrong in the title role. The other thing is Russell Crowe’s accent which has been questioned and debated all over the place. Crowe has fumed his way through several British interviews after the hosts either questioned the authenticity of his accent or – supposedly in the case of Mark Kermode – Crowe mistook them for people who had previously questioned the authenticity of his accent. I wasn’t in the least bit bothered about Crowe’s accent and see it as a massive irrelevance because he barely speaks whole sentences and spends most of the movie uttering dyspeptic grunts which sound vaguely Scouse. Besides, Robin has been away for a decade, mixing with men from all parts of England and is bound to have picked up a bit of a weird twang. The problem seems to have arisen because Crowe made some kind of effort to sound right and in the process ended up sounding wrong. Had he done what Cate Blanchette does and picked a generic "English" accent that doesn’t belong to any particular bit of the country he would’ve been fine. Not that we’d have known he was fine as his dialogue is sparse and barely audible anyway.

I didn’t exactly go to the cinema wanting to hate this film but I had a strong feeling I’d be appalled. There are many moments in its two hours plus that made my heart sink as I thought I’d found the point at which it totally loses its way. As Elizabeth – The Golden Age did when it dawned on me that they’d swapped Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh’s historical roles for no reason what so ever. But each time a moment occurred which made me inwardly groan, they managed to pull it off. This film is nowhere near as objectionable as I was expecting.

The rest of this review will contain spoilers so stop reading if you don’t want to see them.

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There are many examples of this – I’m using the rule of thumb that anything I jotted in my mind as a possible sarcastic text to my sidekick counted as one of them. For example, Marion turns up in the final battle and I sighed because she’d been a practical and sensible woman for most of the film and suddenly, because it’s a modern telling of the story, she would transform into an ass kicking soldier for no reason other than it is the modern thing to do. It turns out she is basically rubbish – as anyone would be picking up a sword for the first time during a pitched battle on a beach – and needs rescuing almost immediately. Or when it looked frighteningly likely that Robin Hood would be responsible for the signing of Magna Carta... only for it not to be Magna Carta but another similar idea that was ultimately ahead of its time. Or King John being turned into a heroic saviour of England – in contrast to his rather bastardly older brother Richard who is now a bit of a twat who plundered his way across the Holy Land and Europe rather than a heroic embodiment of chivalry – in contrast to his longstanding reputation... only for him to turn on the nation in the final scene and become a heel again. Basically, everything that seemed to be going wrong in this film – every bit that felt like Americans getting our history wrong again – was turned round and became fine. Not necessarily fantastic but fine.

Even the outlaw status of Robin Hood – which was really confusing me for the vast majority of the movie – is sorted out in the end. The film opens with some parchment telling us that Robin Hood was a great outlaw. It’s what everyone knows about Robin Hood – Sherwood Forest, bow and arrow, outlaw. And yet here he is at the head of the King’s army. Yes – Robin Hood and King John fighting side by side against the French. How was this an outlaw? I should’ve known better by this point as the film hadn’t let me down so far. Robin only becomes an outlaw right at the very end. So they did know what it meant after all.

I want to make special mention of the battle sequences. They are simply stunning. I thought I’d seen olde worlde battles on screen before but nothing has been anywhere close to this. Not because they did anything radical or revolutionary but because it looked so real. It looked as if several thousand men and several thousand horses were really fighting on a beach somewhere. If there was CGI – and I’m assuming there was lashings of it – it wasn’t obvious. Normally these huge battles look like scenes from video games as computer generated armies fight it out for control of one of the few unspoilt bits of planet Earth. It isn’t that CGI battles look terrible – it’s just that they never look entirely real. The worst example of this is the battle at the end of Phantom Menace where two armies of entirely CGI creatures have an absolutely abysmal war that doesn’t even mange to look like a video game – it’s pure cartoon. And not a very good one. Back in twelfth century England, the arrows rained down, the cavalry charged and the swords were swung and every one of them looked real to me. It didn’t need to bloody itself up to try and make it look more real – as many such battles do on screen – as it achieved it solely through being so well made.

The final scene – which isn’t quite the final scene but it is the final act of the movie – was the final bit which I initially thought had ruined the film but which turned out to be absolutely fine. The battle is won – England is safe – and nice King John is about to sign a treaty with the barons. Only he doesn’t. Out of the blue he burns it, reveals Robin is a fraud, makes Robin and outlaw and stomps off to get down to the real business of being a regal git. Had there been three fewer people in the cinema – for we were a foursome that Monday afternoon – I might’ve shouted something disparaging at the screen at the jarring cut from battle to court, from babyface to heel and from end of movie to bolted on second end of movie. But the few minutes the scene lasted were enough for me to figure it all out. Of course John wants to banish Robin – the rest of the barons are old men but Robin has just inherited land and a title and is therefore the biggest threat in the kingdom to John’s power. He’s also the man who came up with this treaty. At all costs John must destroy Robin or he – John – risks becoming a puppet ruler with Robin pulling the strings. It isn’t a massively complicated plot but it can take a minute or two for the bits to fall into place. And it means Magna Carta can be signed in 1215 when it ought to be (that’s just before lunchtime) rather than in the early months of John’s reign so history can relax and enjoy what’s left of the film.

I liked this film, far more than I thought I would. It is an original take on the centuries’ old legends of Robin Hood and it does a long standing tale good to have some fresh ideas every so often. There is no camp in this film (well, there is an outlaws’ camp at the very end but I don’t meant that sort of camp) – it’s a fairly gritty action movie where things hurt and people bleed. Not for this movie the improbable feats of archery that are to the BBC Robin Hood what the sonic screwdriver is to Doctor Who. Interestingly, Russell Crowe makes almost no impression considering he’s the hero of the film. He betrays no emotion, he makes very little sense and you can almost forget he’s in it at times. It’s not that any of the other actors outshine him – as happened apparently in Prince of Thieves – it’s just that Robin’s role in this story could’ve been filled equally well by anyone else with two legs, two arms and head to put the helmet on. Maybe that’s why the accent story became such a big deal – there is nothing else about his performance which is at all noticeable. But despite having a non-existent star it works. It’s two and a bit hours of action adventure and is surprisingly clever and well thought out. It make lack wit, charisma and any stand out performances but somehow it works. Don’t be put off by anything you might’ve heard or by any preconceptions you might have – it’s almost certainly better than you imagine it will be.