Robin Hood (2018) Review

The legend of Robin Hood is an enduring one and been adapted to screen many times. Summit Entertainment and Lionsgate have attempted to make their own version of the English hero.

Robin of Loxley (Taron Egerton) was a benevolent lord living in the vicinity of Nottingham. After marrying the beautiful Marian (Eve Hewson) Robin is drafted to fight in the Third Crusade. When Robin returns to Nottingham he discovers he had been declared dead and the Sherriff of Nottingham (Ben Mendelsohn) had been taxing the people to the hilt. An Arab fighter (Jamie Foxx) offers to tutor Robin to become a masked vigilante to fight the Sherriff’s injustices.

There have been many interpretations of Robin Hood, from realistic (Robin Hood – 2010), to swashbuckling adventures (The Adventures of Robin Hood), to revisionist (Robin and Marian).  The 2018 version turns Robin Hood into a superhero. He is basically Batman – by day he is the lord of the manor who states his loyalty to the Sheriff whilst at night he puts on his mask and steals from his guards. The film uses superhero clichés like the training montage, becoming a beacon of hope and the unrequited love.

This version of Robin Hood is an origins story – no different to films like Robin Hood: Prince of the Thieves and the Ridley Scott/Russell Crowe version. All these versions of the character are soldiers who fought in the Crusades, return to England to discover some sort of injustice at home. Like Robin Hood: Prince of the Thieves Egerton’s Robin is the wronged lord who had his lands taken from him whilst he’s away. The differences come in the visuals and alterations to the supporting characters like turning Little John into an Arab soldier. Or to put it another way, Little John was Morgan Freeman’s character in Prince of Thieves. Ben Mendelsohn was channelling his inner Alan Rickman with his portrayal of the Sherriff.

The writers and producers were on cruise control where they just go down a standard route. The villain’s plot is the same as in many other Robin Hood films where a faction tries to take over the kingdom. The way the conspiracy that was pretended in the film seemed like it came out of a Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes film.

The 2018 film also has a slice of political commentary where English soldiers are sent to the Middle East under false pretences and the Sheriff of Nottingham stating that the enemy is coming. This is similar to the BBC series where there was unsubtle political commentary about England standing side-by-side with the Pope – mirroring the Blair-Bush relationship. This film should have come in 2007 because the English soldiers were walking around a ruined city, getting ambushed and torture captured Arab soldiers. The film also wanted to tap into how the fear of terrorism is used to justify questionable policies. Robin Hood is hilarious because its message is so blatant and outdated.

Robin Hood has been compared to Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur film which was a notorious flop for Warner Brothers. It is understandable why these comparisons are being made, Egerton speaks with a Cockney accent and used terms like ‘toff.’ Yet the film is really influenced by the works of Zack Snyder and Michael Bay – at least for its action.  There is lots of slo-mo and the action is ramped up. English soldiers with longbows walk around like they were in Fallujah – they were able to use catapults as artillery or air-strikes and the Arab soldiers have amazing acrobatic skills. There are a fair amount of explosions and fires in the film. Best of all crossbows and ballista fired like machine guns which leads to the question why bother using a bow and arrow?

For anyone who has any knowledge of history they will have a great laugh at the inaccuracies. No one expects a true historical retelling but there are basic errors. Some personal favourites are the Sherriff of Nottingham issuing draft notices – Robin (a lord) taking orders from a commoner and the locations used in the film looking nothing like England. Whilst Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Robin Hood (2010) faced a lot of criticisms at least their world felt real and lived in.

Some reviewers have said that the Robin Hood is a tired property but there are still stories to be told about the character. When the 2010 film was in production it was originally going to be told from the Sheriff of Nottingham’s perceptive and Robin was meant to be a villain. And there are other ways to go because the original stories about Robin Hood are very different to how we know them now.

The 2018 version is a bad film that deserves to be a box-office bomb. Yet it is enduring because of its over-stylised action sequences, the forced political commentary and failing basic history. Wonderfully dumb.