*Originally written November 28th, 2018*
From the Disney animated classic to Ridley Scott's 2010 adaptation and even the BBC series that I quite liked as a kid, I've been exposed to the Robin Hood legend a lot, but I'm always up for seeing this story told again, for whatever reason. Sadly, this absolute mess that doesn't know what it wants to be is a misfire on nearly all fronts.
After Guy Ritchie's King Arthur, a completely insane and interesting colossal flop from last year failed to get audiences attention, it's incredible to me that a studio put so a ludicrous amount of money into giving Robin Hood the same treatment, but without Guy Ritchie's direction at the forefront, just some TV director jobber trying to emulate his style.
What's frustrating is just how by the numbers this facade is and how it does absolutely nothing to justify its existence. It's a bit more light-hearted and arguably more entertaining than Ridley Scott's slog of an epic, but it's nowhere near as interesting and does exactly what that tried to do, but dumber. I'll always have a soft-spot for the Robin Hood legend as he is the true communist we need in such a capitalist world. I was almost cheering when Robin gave his speeches about the rich stealing money from the people who actually do the labour to make the profit. Preach, brother. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
I was shocked when this finished and I discovered it was only 100 minutes, it felt like at least 2 hours. Which is probably due to having seen so much of this before. It's just so charmless and bland. Not even a solid cast can save it. Taron Egerton is one of these recent actors who seemed well suited to the role, but he's just so generic and bland here, he lacks any real kind of charm or charisma. Oscar winner Jamie Foxx is cast as an Arabian (For some reason) and he is so over the top and silly, he felt like something from a different film. Eve Hewson is the generic damsel in distress as Maid Marion, a character defined entirely by her cleavage. Tim Minchin brings a little bit of distracting humour to his role as he does a bizarre Bill Bailey impression.
Ben Mendelsohn is a fantastic actor, so it's such a shame to see him falling back into the same boring villain role he seems to get cast in all the time these days. A menacing and forgettable cliche that chews the scenery, but lacks anything close to resembling a character. His career reminds me very much of Christoph Waltz after Inglorious Basterds. They saw he could play a good villain, so they just kept casting him in the same role with diminishing returns each time. Between this, Rogue One and Ready Player One, I could not tell you a thing that separates Mendelsohn's characters.
The action shows some signs of style here and there, but is consistently butchered by hacky editing and annoying slow-motion that feels insanely outdated in 2018. The Matrix was 19 years ago. Get over it. It was fun to see Robin's insane bow-play now and then though, I honestly wish they did some of the action in the vein of John Wick's "Gun-Fu", but with bow and arrows. How much better would that have been?
It's also pretty clear that they wanted to hire Hans Zimmer for the score here, but instead just got someone in to create a knock-off of his Dark Knight score. I was in disbelief at how similar it sounded to his work. Zimmer needs to start a lawsuit here. It was laughable.
This whole thing just does not know what it wants to be. It opens with "Forget anything you know about history", but then goes on to tell a story we've seen several times with no changes. It even has a shameless sequel bait ending for a film that will never see the light of day considering this is tracking to be one of the biggest bombs of the year. It's no loss. Can't wait for the next Robin Hood reboot in 2028 mimicking the style of whatever's popular then.
4/10 Dans
Robin Hood is out now in cinemas in the UK
Watch the trailer below:
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