Cannes audience gives 'Robin Hood' an indifferent welcome

The arrow didn't hit the bull's-eye, but it didn't strike a fatal blow to the chest, either.
Robin Hood opened the Cannes Film Festival Wednesday to be greeted with shrugs, although there was none of the jeering and overt hostility that slapped around the likes of The Da Vinci Code and Marie Antoinette when they played the world's biggest movie gathering several years ago.
REVIEW: 'Robin Hood' misses the mark
As the sun set on the Mediterranean, shimmering with the sparkling lights of a flotilla of yachts, stars Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett delivered star power to the red carpet leading to Cannes' movie-house temple — the Grand Théâtre Lumière. Thousands of fans crowded the street, peering over their heads and raising cameras into the air for a glimpse of the beautiful and famous.
When the movie ended, it was raining, a dreary counterpart to the overall mood. Moviegoers in tuxedos and gowns marched Majestic Beach, where giant, sleeping digging machines and barrel-sized bags of sand stacked along the dock were testament to the freak storm that decimated these French Riviera beaches last week.
Medieval-style jugglers and carnival flame-handlers entertained the crowd huddled under the dripping eaves of wind-ruffled tents. Those who stepped too close to the dockside entertainment found themselves occasionally splashed with seawater. Crowe and wife Danielle Spencer slipped inside, taking refuge in a dark alcove.
Robin Hood opens stateside today, with hopes that the high-profile Cannes showcase will give the Crusades-era battle epic a jolt of adrenaline.
"There were no boos from the balcony, but no applause. I didn't hear any," says Sasha Stone, Oscar blogger for AwardsDaily.com. "I don't think there was hatred or love. Just sort of ... eh. Indifference. That would be my take. Muted is a very good word."
She notes that the film doesn't tell the Robin Hood lore, the story of a noble outlaw who robs from the rich to give to the poor, instead being more of a prequel. Crowe plays a soldier from the Crusades who returns to an impoverished England to fight King John's oppressive regime. Only at the end is Robin living in Sherwood Forest, a fugitive with his merry men, bedeviling the Sheriff of Nottingham.
A couple of stabs at subtext
The movie premiere also was hurt by the absence of director Ridley Scott, waylaid because of knee-replacement surgery, the after-effect of an injury on the set of 1997's G.I. Jane. He sent a statement reading in part: "My recovery has been slower than I'd hoped. Truly, doctors' orders are the only thing that could keep me from being there."
In a town where filmmakers are worshiped, his absence was deeply felt, particularly since the film takes such a unique approach to the familiar tale and could have benefited from publicity surrounding his own philosophy about the film.
Crowe gave it his best shot during a playful, if sometimes tense, news conference at the Palais des Festivals headquarters, though he declined to discuss whether Robin Hood's anti-tax rabble-rousers had any political resonance, turning down a few early questions.
In England, where Prime Minister Gordon Brown was forced out just this week, the movie could ride the mad-as-hell, not-going-to-take-it-anymore hunger for regime change, one British reporter suggested.
Crowe took a pass, but Blanchett, co-starring as a fighting Lady Marion, agreed the movie had some political resonance.
"I think it's true, and it's sort of an irony that this is all going on when the film is being released today. I think it's a testament to Ridley's talents as a director that all those things are there for the taking, but it's also a wild ride and, of course, the thing I'm interested in — the love story. He's able to tonally weave all those elements into the film."
In the USA, some critics suggested it could resonate with the anti-government Tea Party movement, though they might prefer to overlook the movie's repeatedly stated point about how it was costly and unnecessary war-making that bankrupted the kingdom.
"I think it's a dog-whistle movie, in that people will tune in on different frequencies and get what they want to get out of it," says Ann Hornaday, film critic for The Washington Post. "On one hand, you can see how it appeals to (the Tea Party supporters') populist sense of grievance, especially about taxes. But then on the other hand, it's really about equality of opportunity, and fairness and justice, which appeals to everybody."
This Robin Hood is also a veteran who comes back facing not much of a future, and begins fighting against powerful and moneyed interests. "He's the repository of a lot of ideals that people have projected on Obama," Hornaday says. "I think it's an open text that way."
... and another at the press
Crowe dismissed questions about the political subtext — which is never a good ticket-seller anyway — but did use the questioning to zing his favorite targets: the press.
"People have been asking me a lot ... would Robin Hood's aim be political" if he were alive today, the actor said. "Would he aim at certain (elected) figures and try to bring them down? Would his aim be economic? Would he be looking at Wall Street and the huge sums of money people are patting themselves on the back with, and all that? Or would he be looking at what you guys do for a living, and realizing that the true wealth lies in the dissemination of information?" Crowe said.
"My theory would be: If Robin Hood was alive today, he would be looking at the monopolization of the media as the greatest enemy."
He said the film isn't "standing under a banner of historical accuracy." The film does use some historical elements as a starting point, such as the signing of the Magna Carta, which ninth-grade history buffs will recall as the 1215 document that restrained the king's power and granted certain rights to free men.
It was signed by one of the villains of the film — King John.
"What piqued my own curiosity is this indolent egotist, King John," Crowe says. "He ends up signing the first version of the Magna Carta before the end of his reign. How did that shift happen? What pressure was applied to King John in that period that brought him from an indolent egotist to the man who champions the rights of other people? That, to me, is the fertile ground where a resistance fighter, a rebel hero could rise. That's what we wanted to do with this movie — find a place where that rebel hero could rise and apply pressure to a monarch."
Blanchett added: "Through the love of a good woman."
Crowe cracked a rare smile.
Producer Brian Grazer was mostly quiet through the questioning, but spoke up at the end. Though this one wasn't great, he has had worse receptions.
"I've been to the Cannes Film Festival many different times with different kinds of movies. I've been here for controversial moments, like The Da Vinci Code, which did very well," he said, referring to the strong box office despite the critical lambasting the movie got at the festival. "I came also with Changeling and Clint Eastwood and Angelina Jolie, and the festival loved Clint."
The risks are high, but so are the rewards, Grazer said.
"It's very important, actually. You have an opportunity to capture the whole world's attention," he said. "We were thrilled to be selected."sentiment
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Flash Isn't Critical To Adobe Success

Flash is important to Adobe Systems Inc. (ADBE) but isn't critical to the company's survival, Adobe Co-Chairman and Co-Founder Chuck Geschke said.
The technology, which Adobe got when it acquired Macromedia Inc. for $3.4 billion in 2005, has been at the heart of a rancorous and public spat between Adobe and Apple Inc. (AAPL) that now includes three founders of the two companies.
Apple Co-Founder and Chief Executive Steve Jobs recently said Adobe's Flash video player isn't suitable for mobile devices, as the company banned Flash from Apple products such as the iPhone and the new iPad. Adobe has responded that Apple is promoting a closed system that threatens creativity.
Today, Adobe launched a new ad campaign with full-page ads for Flash in several major newspapers. At the same time, it created a section on its website devoted to Flash and openness on the Internet. An essay on the site from Geschke and co-founder John Warnock said that "if companies put content and applications behind walls their success will come at the expense of the very creativity and innovation that has made the Internet a revolutionary force."
Adobe doesn't break out how much company revenue comes from Flash, but most of its Flash revenue is from developers who buy tools for developing Flash content, Geschke said in an interview with Dow Jones. Tools for creating Flash content are sold on their own, or as part of the Creative Suite software known as CS5. The suite includes products such as Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.
Responding to criticism of Flash's tendency to crash, Geschke said that the next version of Flash will be out "soon" and will be "dramatically faster and more stable."
Estimates indicate that somewhere between 66% and 75% of Web-based video is viewed via the Flash Player, including videos encoded in codes such as H.264 and VP6.
The irony of the squabble between the two companies, whose fortunes were very much aligned in the 1980s, isn't lost on Geschke.Jobs originally tried to buy Adobe in the early 1980s, Geschke said, but Adobe eventually settled on a deal by which Apple bought 19% of the company and built its Postscript technology into Apple's first printer, the LaserWriter. That printer, said Geschke, "was critical to the early success of their company."
Then, Adobe, Apple and Aldus--the company that created the PageMaker page layout application--partnered together in 1985 to promote the idea of desktop publishing. That notion made fortunes for all of the company's founders at a time when Geschke said "Apple wasn't doing that well" in the midst of strong competition from IBM.
"Desktop publishing turned their business around," he said. "It made a tremendous change in Apple's fortunes in the mid-80s. The relationship has been important for both companies."
But the relationship began to show signs of strain after Jobs was forced out of Apple and the new management in 1989 said it would replace Postscript in its printers with TrueType, a competing technology that Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) later integrated into Windows.
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