For me, the definitive Robin Hood will always be Disney's.

Then again, Disney's Robin Hood is my definitive anything. When I was young, I watched that movie as if it were pornographic, or at least as if it were the animated version of the Victoria's Secret catalog. If I'd been wired a little different, I'd probably be talking about this from within a giant raccoon suit, complete with the kind of access hatches you normally only see on those red prospectors' pajamas.

-- Local show times, theaters, trailer.

Yet somehow that childhood fascination with Robin Hood hasn't translated to my grownup life. And I love stealing! My ignorance of the real story of the man, then, is a special kind of ignorance. After watching Ridley Scott's take on Robin Hood, I'm not sure I'm any closer to the truth — it's a possible history, not a definitive one — but I'll tell you this much, I liked it a whole lot more than Gladiator.

When the king dies during the Crusades, archer Russell Crowe and his fellow soldiers strike out for England. Along the way, he happens upon nobleman Douglas Hodge, who, mortally wounded in an ambush, asks Crowe to return his sword to his father.

But the ambush Crowe witnessed was part of a French scheme to throw England into unrest. As Crowe settles into a peaceful life, he finds himself hunted by Mark Strong, the French agent who means to leave England open to invasion.

Though all the figures of legend show up sooner or later, Robin Hood is firmly an origin story, the events that led up to the man's forest-roaming banditry. With any luck, its success won't spur similar prequels for other larger-than-life figures. I just don't think a feature-length movie about Peter Parker building models in his aunt's basement would be as thrilling as the concept suggests.

Crowe's route to heroism is a wandering and largely unintentional one. Robin Hood has so much intrigue that if cars were powered by schemes instead of gas, I'd be broken down halfway to Mars. Not because I ran out of intrigue gas, but because internal combustion engines have an awfully hard time operating in the oxygen-free vacuum of space. Once again, Google Maps has done me dirty.

Scott has got the directing chops to work the courtly machinations into the story without bogging things down. The pace is a bit slow, but it isn't boring. Then again, I'm fascinated for origin stories. After watching The Fly, I was clamoring for Maggot: The Early Years.

Good writing will usually rescue a slow story. Writer Brian Helgeland is a true renaissance man, having penned everything from hacky crap such as The Taking of Pelham 123 to Oscar winners such as L.A. Confidential. Here, he's not in peak form — many of the side characters are willow-thin — but he's at least in foothills form, providing light comedy alongside Crowe's unusual path to action.

But as Robin Hood gains momentum, it starts to wobble. The final battle is gorgeous — Scott has always got great cinematography — but it's rushed and a bit melodramatic.

And although Cate Blanchett's performance is among the strongest of the bunch, her role there is forced. Naturally, I thought it felt cribbed from Return of the King.

The ending hustles along, shoehorning itself into the setup for the legend. After all that deliberate pacing, it's an abrupt turn; I would've forgiven an already-long movie to spend just a couple minutes more to wrap things up.

Still, despite its lapses Robin Hood is well-crafted and well-told, a plausible take on a very blurry legend.

Grade: B-