Sadly Over-hyped

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

The title of this movie derives from the fact that so many of us associate Errol Flynn, the actor, with his swashbuckling role in "Robin Hood." In fact I have the restored DVD of that movie and I've never taken the time to see it all the way through. Now I need to do that!Kevin Kline has always been one of my favorite actors and here he is very appropriate as Errol Flynn, and especially considering the physical resemblance. This is not a biography of the actor, in fact it covers only the last two years of his life, 1957 through 1959.I never knew this about the man but he had a long history of affairs with underage girls, and was even prosecuted for statutory rape. In his later life represented by this movie he didn't seem to have any guilt about it and assumed those around him knew what was going on.His last "love" was 15 when they met, Dakota Fanning in a very appropriate role as Beverly Aadland, with ambitions as a singer, dancer, and actress. Flynn met her quite by accident and he was immediately smitten. He invited her out "to discuss her career" but ended up seducing her, much to her surprise. In time it seems she actually learned to love this guy who was 33 years older than she.Enter the mother, Susan Sarandon in a good performance as Florence Aadland. She was quite stricken with the idea that Flynn would befriend her little girl and help her career, and only when the three traveled to New York together, and she learned that Flynn and her daughter would be sharing a hotel room, and bed, did she realize what was going on.Flynn was not healthy and at one point he mentions that 10 years earlier a doctor told him that with his lifestyle he had maybe 6 months left to live, so he made the best of it and he is still around. But in 1959, at the age of 50, he died of a heart attack in Canada where he had gone to sell his yacht, he needed money. While they were shooting a movie out of the country Flynn dictated a revision to his will, to give Beverly 1/3 of his estate, but it was never signed and witnessed so it was invalid. Beverly went on to a quiet life and her mother was convicted and jailed for a time for child neglect.Good movie to illuminate part of the life history of Errol Flynn. DVD from my public library.

We rented this DVD yesterday and enjoyed it thoroughly, thanks to the amazing cast, director, writers, editors, and everyone involved in recreating the awesome 1950s retro "look" of the film (super-cool furniture, cars, wardrobe, make-up, etc.) We love truthful biopics on Hollywood's greatest actors and this film stayed true to the real story, which was absolutely fascinating. The movie moves so quickly that there is not one boring second in the entire film! Kevin Kline, Susan Sarandon, Dakota Fanning should all get Oscars for their amazing performances. (Would love to see Susan Sarandon play Bette Davis in a biopic.) I think the real Beverly Aadland would be proud to see how her story was presented on film (she stayed dedicated and completely in love with Errol Flynn through her whole life). Highly recommend this film to anyone who loves the actors from The Golden Age of Hollywood. "The Last of Robin Hood" deserves way more than 10 stars! We need more amazing films like this!

Kevin Kline and Susan Sarandon give fine performances in this movie, as they so often have done. That doesn't make this movie better, however. The script has lots of holes, unfortunately.The clearest, best-developed character is the mother, a sad version of Mama Rose from Gypsy. She had dreamed of being a dancer, but when that was denied her by an accident, she undertook to raise her daughter to be in show business, and thus to live through her. That explains most of her actions in the movie.Flynn's character is less well-developed. Why his fascination with this particular young girl? Why does he become involved with heroin? Kline makes him a fascinating, charismatic character, as Flynn evidently was in life even to the end, but the script never lets us really see behind the charming facade.The daughter, Beverly, remains the most enigmatic. Does she really want a career in show business? What does she see in Flynn? She is the last person we see in the movie, but we never really see inside her.Once Flynn dies, the other two characters aren't interesting enough to hold our attention for the last 15-20 minutes of the movie.It's worth watching once for Kline as Flynn, but I wouldn't watch it again.---------------------------After seeing this movie I happened to catch *My Favorite Year* on TCM. It's an infinitely better movie, because it approaches Erol Flynn in his last years in a different way. Rather than attempting to be a docudrama, *My Favorite Year* is a fantasy on how Flynn might have been in his last years. The script is not shackled to history. Rather, it is free to soar. And soar it does. Peter O'Toole creates a bigger-than-life Flynn, not tied down by any effort to be faithful to reality. Nor does he try to imitate Flynn. Rather, he creates a character who faces the issue that *The Last of Robin Hood* never really confronts: the conflict Flynn must have felt between the image of him that the studio created, largely through his adventure films, and the real Erol Flynn. The whole movie is wonderful, but the greatest moment comes at the end, during the crazy live TV show, when O'Toole's character gets caught up in his own legend and becomes the swash-buckler he had played so many times on screen. It's magic, a magic we never see, alas, in *The Last of Robin Hood.*If you're a fan of Kevin Kline, a great actor, see *The Last of Robin Hood* once to see his fine performance as Flynn. But if you're a fan of Erol Flynn, pass on *The Last of Robin Hood* and see *My Favorite Year.* You will love it.

"In like Flynn," a colloquial expression based on the dissolute life of Errol Flynn.Because Kevin Kline looks like an aging Errol Flynn (he died at 50), it's easy to believe Kline's depiction of the swashbuckling roué from early 20th Century American film in The Last of Robin Hood. Yet, if you want really to experience the bad boy who gave Robin life, read his autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways. Sadly this film is a dull, soporific take on the last years of Flynn.Not that Kevin Kline doesn't have the ability to be roguish like Flynn, it's just that he appears to have been directed to underplay the famous rake, a letdown for those of us hoping to experience the wild wicked one. Instead, this Flynn is pursuing a much younger woman, Beverly Aadland (Dakota Fanning), with a feeling of entitlement and an ennui-subtle sense of "been there." More interesting than the moribund Flynn is Beverly's mom, Florence (Susan Sarandon) -- a stage mom if there ever was one. Her machinations to get her daughter into films are almost unbelievable. When she realizes her underage daughter is sleeping with Flynn, the other side of her ambition, the love of a mother, rings true as a contrast. However, she allows the affair. To their credit, Fanning and Kline seem to care about each other to the extent that any moral outrage about statutory rape is slightly mitigated.Although the script doesn't allow for the dramatic energy that should accompany his shenanigans, brightening the dim movie is Sarandon's ambitious mom with dorky glasses and fat—she steals whatever show there is to take.So if you want to witness the quiet decline of a glamorous pedophile, the coda to Flynn's checkered life is gently carried out by Kevin Kline as if in hospice. It's the last of an outrageous actor. R.I.P.