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The film stars off by saying it doesn’t want to bore us with the history. This is a sure-fire guarantee way to piss me off as I quite like history so telling me the history of how English royalty and lordships abused the lower classes in 12-14th century England would be interesting to me. I think saying something like this gets the film off to a bad start because it shows that the filmmakers don’t have a passion for the history of the legend or the time it is set. It doesn’t feel like a project that isn’t backed by love.
One thing I really don’t quite get is why nobody figured out Robin of Loxley was The Hood. The evidence is pretty damning. Stories of The Hood began soon after he arrived home from the crusades, and somehow, he managed to donate a large sum of money to the war effort despite losing his estate (where did they think he got the money from?). Nobody thought it odd that he managed to donate a large sum of money a day after the war tax collection money was stolen. And another thing his actions in Arabia (freeing the captive Arabs) must at least aroused some suspicion he was the hooded crusader because of his uncommon regard, among the ruling classes, for the welfare of the lower man.
The latest version of the Robin Hood tale is a modern (rather than modernised) telling of the story and it makes for a refreshing take on the legend compared to the many Robin Hood stories that have been produced. The modern telling of the story with its clearly and deliberately anachronistic costume design and modern style of filmmaking allows the film to shed more light on the parallels between the historical story and the current period in which the majority are still a clear underclass. The film is shot more like a modern action thriller or an Iraq War, Call of Duty type film than a traditional historical swashbuckling romp in the mould of Prince of Thieves or Errol Flynn’s 1939 classic. In itself this isn’t a flaw as its not too dissimilar to Ridley Scott’s 2019 film but the action itself is so generically modern that it isn’t as refreshing as it could have been. Not only that, the gore felt toned down to get a lower rating and reach a larger audience which, in hindsight, proved to be pointless decision as the film was a failure at the box office.
It’s also very rare that the leading star is so easily out performed. Taron Egerton’s cheeky chappie persona was fun to watch in the Kingsman movies but now the novelty is wearing thin. He’s outshined by his villainous co-stars Ben Mendelsohn (Sheriff of Nottingham), F. Murray Abraham (the cardinal) and Paul Anderson (Guy Gisborne). Ben Mendelsohn’s Sheriff of Nottingham is the star of the film with his evil clearly personified with a swish of a cape and threatening growl. However, the central paring lets the film down as I couldn’t give a monkeys about the romantic relationship between Marion and Robin because both performances just aren’t good enough for me to care.
It isn’t the intolerable torturous mess that some have made it out to be, but it feels like it wasted an interesting opportunity to revamp a tired and old story. However, at least it tries to. On the plus side, it doesn’t pretend to be a historical accurate telling of the legend of Robin Hood unlike Prince of Thieves which believed one could walk from Dover to Nottingham via Hadrian’s Wall in less than 12 hours (in actuality its about 178 hours - and that’s without rest, getting hopelessly lost or sheltering from the rain).
2.5/5
Movie Review: Robin Hood
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