You would be hard pushed to find a more enduring screen character than Robin Hood. His heroics date as far back as the dawn of cinema, with his 1908 debut in Percy Stow's silent film Robin Hood and His Merry Men. Since then, he's appeared in countless films and TV shows. British director Ridley Scott brings his vision of the 'Prince of Thieves' to the big screen, ringing the bell as the first of this summer's blockbusters.

Richard the Lionheart (Danny Huston) is on the final leg of his exhausting crusades; being away nearly ten years from his country, he's more than ready to get back home and put his feet up for a bit. Unfortunately, history has other plans.

Sir Robert Loxley (Douglas Hodge) is preparing to leave France, to return to England to inform the people of the king's demise. But luck is not on his side either. He and his men are ambushed by Godfrey (Mark Strong), a French-speaking Englishmen who doesn't appear to have his King or country at heart.

A small bunch of English archers, led by a Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe), come across the dying Loxley, who asks Longstride to return his sword to his father in Nottingham. Being a man of his word, Longstride agrees. To help him and his band of fairly merry men escape France, Longstride takes the identity of Loxley.

On their return home they soon discover that the country is in a right royal mess. As promised, Robin visits Loxley's aging father (Max von Sydow), who surprisingly delivers him an offer he can't refuse. Robin, seeing his country torn apart and given a reason to stay, decides that he must take matters into his own hands.

This, then, is not the usual take on the Robin Hood legend. If anything it is a prequel to the familiar story that's been told countless times before. Here, Hood does very little taking from the rich and giving to the poor. This is the story of the man who became the Hood.

The problem is, with no real template of a story to follow, Brian Helgeland's script is an overly long and laborious affair. It's substantial middle section is reminiscent of an episode of Lark Rise to Candleford and just as ferocious. It plods, plods, plods away, taking its sweet time to quicken the pace.

It also doesn't help that this prequel also takes the identity of another film, Sommersby, which deals with a soldier returning home prentending to be someone he isn't. So much for a different take on the story.

This wouldn't be so much of a problem if the characters were engaging, but they're not. The only thing entertaining about them is their accents. Crowe, for one, sounds for the most part like a confused leprechaun. The rest of his men also struggle with maintaining a vaguely authentic accent.

The acting also deserves some scrutiny. Crowe certainly has his full range of emotions at work; sometimes both of them can be seen at the same time. The supporting cast do their best, most notably von Sydow; the veteran actor can still put many of the youngsters to shame.

Even Scott's twist by having the Sheriff of Nottingham replaced as the baddie doesn't pay off. There's no denying that Mark Strong is a fine actor, but of late you can have him as any character you like, as long as he's villainous. Yes, Strong is the ubiquitous baddie, but desperately needs to show more versatility in his performances, for everyone's sake.

You can tell that Cate Blanchett is doing her best with her portrayal of a more mature Marion, but even her considerable talent can't carry the film.

With very little personality on display from any of the leads then, at least you can rely on Scott to make it look good. He doesn't. Visually it's nothing short of disappointing. Even its climax plays back like Scott doing the Normandy landings set in 12th Century England. On top of that, without looking at the obvious 'taking from the rich' element of the story (presumably saving that part of the story for the inevitable sequel), much of the fighting scenes look like they could have come straight out of 1995's Braveheart. It looks like he simply couldn't see the woods for the trees.

The fact that Scott got this so wrong also doesn't bode well for the recently announced Alien films he is attached to. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Despite this being a brave attempt at delivering a different angle on an all too familiar tale, it's hard to imagine that audiences across the land won't help but feel they've been robbed.