Russell Crowe stars as England's legendary medieval hero in Ridley Scott's Robin Hood. (David Appleby/Universal Studios)

It must be an unwritten rule that each movie-going generation needs its very own Robin Hood. Everyone from Douglas Fairbanks to Sean Connery to an accent-challenged Kevin Costner has taken a stab at this swashbuckling role, and it was probably inevitable that one day the burly Russell Crowe would want to don Robin Hood's well-worn tights, too.

The film careens from drama to limp romance to frenzied action flick. The result is murky and frustrating.

But in Ridley Scott's determinedly gritty Robin Hood, Crowe never gets a chance to strut his stuff in green hosiery. He’s far too busy plodding through all the exposition going on around him — which might explain his pained, cranky expression throughout.

Early on, Scott and screenwriter Brian Helgeland establish this film isn’t going to be about the Robin Hood familiar from folklore and psychedelic cartoons. Robin Hood takes place long before that legend began, when Richard the Lionheart (Danny Huston) is still king, and Robin Longstride (Crowe) is a lowly archer in Richard’s army during the Crusades.

After a few hyper-violent battle sequences that unfold as a flurry of quick cuts and disorienting camerawork, Robin Hood settles down to a positively dozy pace. More than half of the film's running time is devoted to a dry, textbook study of backstabbing English royals, with a few quick scenes of Robin's leaden sidekicks partying with mead-swilling Friar Tuck thrown in for not-so comic relief.

In between the lute music and drunken, dancing wenches, there's an overwhelming amount of plot to digest. Richard the Lionheart is dispatched early on, allowing his infantile brother, John (Oscar Isaac), to become king. The impetuous brat wastes no time in dismissing the court's loyal chancellor (William Hurt), and he’s so preoccupied with establishing taxation that he fails to notice his two-faced cohort Godfrey (an impressive Mark Strong) is plotting against him with King Philip of France. Meanwhile, back in Nottingham, Robin is honouring his promise to a fallen soldier by paying a visit to the dead man’s father (Max von Sydow) and widow, Marion (Cate Blanchett).

Robin (Crowe) and Marion (Cate Blanchett) in a scene from Robin Hood. (David Appleby/Universal Studios)

That’s just the bare-bones version of the film’s setup, which is so complicated I caught myself trying to recall scraps of my Grade 9 history class to keep up. Yet even when the plot becomes clear, Robin Hood remains confusing, because the director shoots in a dark, greyed-out colour scheme that obscures characters and makes everything look like it’s unfolding on a foggy November morning. Add to that the undecided tone, which careens from drama to limp romance to frenzied action flick, and the result is frustrating and murky.

Scott is deeply committed to capturing authentic, 12th-century world details – the chain-link costumes, the assorted weaponry, the grass-roofed huts and the boxy French boats that move across crashing waves all feel spot-on. But Scott's admirable desire to play it straight ends up being self-defeating. Ditching almost all of the crowd-pleasing, stealing-from-the-rich story elements in favour of convoluted political history and meticulous production design, he and his actors wind up stranded in a lifeless movie Siberia.

Robin Hood is tough on its cast, and fine performers like Hurt and von Sydow are barely given enough screen time to register. Cate Blanchett fares better as a no-nonsense Maid Marion — no small accomplishment considering the script’s revisionist view of her as a Middle Ages feminist warrior is wholly implausible.

The few sparks Blanchett generates early on are extinguished by Crowe’s wet-blanket performance. Crowe is a gifted actor, and what he's doing in Robin Hood isn’t bad — it's just the Method technique taken too far. He burrows so far inside Robin — nailing his accent, humanist beliefs and traumatic backstory — that he can’t find his way back out. Any traces of Crowe's twinkle-eyed mischief (see: State of Play) are gone; he's so serious, he acts as if he's in a vacuum.

Crowe’s performance doesn't ruin Robin Hood, but it’s symptomatic of what’s wrong with the movie. What he’s doing is workmanlike and grave, when actors as varied as Errol Flynn and Sean Connery have understood that anyone who plays Robin Hood needs to display a bit of puckish glee. Likewise, this handsome movie displays great craftsmanship, but it's so preoccupied with its own seriousness, it completely forgets about the fun. Without it, what you’re left with is pretty joyless — a movie that feels a lot like a Grade 9 history lesson.

Robin Hood opens May 14.

Lee Ferguson writes about the arts for CBC News.