Robin Hood (2018)

It seems that as more time passes by heroes of old become more of a nostalgic twinkle for many. Legendary tales of heroic warriors, knights, Kings, and outlaws no longer ignite our imaginations it seems. Either that or modern films are not able to capture the magic anymore. But when you combine a classic historical outlaw with modern comicbook styling, shouldn't it work (for the target audience)? Or is that the right angle to take with such a character?

Well I'm not gonna bore you with the story of Rob...oh they totally changed it. Yep, going into this movie you have to understand one very important thing, this isn't a traditional Robin Hood tale. Director Otto Bathurst made the decision to essentially change everything about this historical English tale to the point that it's almost unrecognisable. So apart from the basic story being jettisoned, we are now faced with some weird quasi-Nottingham set within some weird quasi-England.

To be clear. Nottingham now looks like something from a Tolkien novel. The city now looks more like a sparkling sprawling Elven citadel mixed with your typical poorer areas that look like Orc ramparts. Within the city (from what I could tell) there are now VAST mines with VAST steel infrastructures and minecart tracks. There are HUGE crucibles filled with gallons of molten steel suspended upon high. The architecture of the building interiors seem quite modern and everything is spotless both inside and out. And there appears to be people of various races within the city! Bear in mind this is supposed to be England in the 15/16th Century.

Then alongside all that you have the look and attire of the people. Firstly most everyone is nice and clean with relatively smart haircuts and facial hair. Secondly they all appear to be wearing relatively modern clothes. Robin (Taron Egerton) parades around in a waxed Barbour looking jacket, a machine stitched hoodie...well machine stitched everything! Whilst the Sheriff of Nottingham (Ben Mendelsohn) seems to be wearing suit jackets which are immaculately made...and clean! Heck in the common folk are well dressed and clean, even in riot attire. But then the regular knights of Nottingham (the Sheriff's men) look like gladiators out of a Mad Max or Conan movie.

The action and weaponry in this movie is also bizarre. I when I say bizarre I mean its been hyper-modernised to try and attract the kids. At the start we see Robin and Guy of Gisborne fighting back to back in the Crusades (absolutely no St George's Crosses of any description anywhere I might add, oh and one of the Crusaders is black??). The Crusaders move around holding their bow and arrows like a modern soldier. They move like modern soldiers. Their attire is all identical and has similar colours to modern US soldiers. The arrows they fire make bullet-like impacts with a spray of debris. Some soldiers seem to have machine-gun like crossbows. There is even a large mounted machine-gun like crossbow! Hell even the rocks thrown by catapults cause explosions, it's laughable.

It's here Robin meets a Muslim/Saracen (Jamie Foxx) whom he saves after his son is brutally executed by Gisborne. Although I'm not sure why Robin gets so upset seeing as this was commonplace at the time seeing as they were at war. Long story short this character becomes Little John, he's not actually the character of Little John (they have excluded him for some reason), he takes that characters place (for quota reasons presumably. Can't have too many white guys can we). Hilariously this guy gets back to England by stowing away in the bowels of a small ship (literally!). Not sure how he survived without food and water though considering they would have been at sea for months but I guess I'm being picky.

I guess I'm also being too picky when I question how a Saracen can walk around Nottingham freely without raising any suspicion or outright outrage because he's a Muslim! Errr...hello? Did no one stop to think why a Saracen was walking around their English city at a time of war??

Then we have the horse-drawn cart chase sequence, oh boy. This is exactly what you're thinking, maybe. Robin and Marian try to escape on one cart whilst Gisborne chases on his cart along with his men on horseback. They both crash through the mine area at breakneck speed until Robin is forced onto a single horse (after the cart is hit with an explosion), outruns a huge crucible spilling its molten steel and carries on at breakneck speed across sky-high rickety wooden walkways. All in a days work for this superhero.

This isn't a Robin Hood movie. If you took out the name Robin Hood (and everything relating to it) it could be an acceptable fantasy/quasi-historical adventure yarn, maybe. Even then its a generic and predictable mess. In the pursuit of the modern young audience they have infused modern action, modern culture, and Marvel movies into a part historic fable. Now whilst that could work, it simply doesn't here. This just feels all kinds of wrong, it's painful to watch. I don't want to say this but it almost feels like a liberal revisionist take on history at times. It's like they have deliberately tried to jam modern day ideologies into this period of history to comply with a specific section of society who might get upset otherwise.

I think what really pissed me off was the bloody comicbook-esque ending. Oh yeah this ends on a question mark with a fresh new baddie (complete with nasty facial scar) eager to kill Robin and his recently acquired merry men. Feck me we are only introduced to Sherwood Forest at the end because that was saved for the sequel! The sequel we're never getting. Yep, its another case of a movie essentially being a long setup or trailer for another movie which would have given us all the core things we really wanted to see in the first place. Because modern movies ladies and gents.

So yeah, in essence this is basically Robin Hood...the modern (Marvel) superhero version. He can fire arrows in rapid-fire succession. He can fire arrows rapidly in mid-air. He never runs out of arrows. He gets shot by arrows but doesn't die through loss of blood. He fires off witty quips. His sidekick looks like Nick Fury. His merry men are politically correct. He is known as 'The Hood', and he looks like a Mortal Kombat ninja when suited up.

So, going back to my original question, should this have worked? Is it the tale that doesn't hold up or the movie that was poor? Well I realise the director wanted to try something new here but I think what he really wanted to do was make a comicbook movie because that's all this is. In that sense it should have worked but I just don't think kids are interested in Robin Hood anymore. Bows and arrows are of no interest to the younger audience unless they belong to Green Arrow or whoever. On the flip side I don't think older folk are bothered about seeing a superhero-esque Robin Hood because frankly, it's a stupid idea.

2.5/10