Review – Robin Hood (2018)
Review – Robin Hood (2018)
Directed by: Otto Barthurst
Written by: Ben Chandler & David James Kelly
Produced by: David James Kelly & Leonardo DiCaprio
Starring: Taron Edgerton, Jamie Foxx & Ben Mendelsohn
Release Date: November 21st 2018
I recently decided to go back and re-watch the Robin Hood reboot for review from late 2018; the main reason being that I really couldn’t remember much about it. After my better half and I sat through it, she turned to me and asked what I thought of it. In response, I just shrugged my shoulders and said, “it was alright.” That is genuinely the best way that I can think of to sum up my feeling on this film.
This reboot is an incredibly forgettable, mediocre action movie based around the loose concept of the old tale of Robin Hood. It is extremely cheesy and has bags of whatever the opposite of subtle is. It tries to tell a gritty, ‘Year One,’ type of story for the character and treats the Robin Hood moniker as a dual identity for Robin Loxley, drawing heavy comparisons to the Batman/Bruce Wayne dynamic. Unfortunately, not much of it lands due to the lack of risk-taking involved.
The movie also feels weirdly dated, especially considering that it is only a few years old. There are an abundance of overindulgent slow motion shots present in the film in the style of 300; a movie that was 12 years old at the time of this movie’s release. The overall use of green-screen in this film is actually pretty atrocious judging by today’s standards and actually might be some of the worst out of any movie I saw back in 2018. This is noticeable throughout the whole movie, but is especially rough-looking during a carriage chase that happens around two thirds into the film.
The cast are all phoning it in as well. Taron Egerton does nothing special with the lead role and Ben Mendlesohn hams it up as the Sheriff Of Nottingham, doing pretty much the same villainous shlock that he did in Ready Player One and Star Wars: Rogue One, way to not get typecast Mendo!
The other weird thing about this movie, is that it doesn’t seem to be quite sure what era it wants to be set in. Some of the accents, language and costumes are suitable for the period that the movie is set in, but other elements and other lines of dialogue and costumes etc feel like they are from 2018, the year that this movie was made. The end result that they were aiming for may have been a sort of rolling timeline that transcends the days of the Crusades that the movie is set in but what we end up with is just a scattered mess.
There were a few sparse positives in this thing. Some of the stunt archery is, (while super unrealistic,) pretty cool to watch. I know that ‘real life Legolas,’ Lars Andersen was hired to teach the cast some archery and I believe he helped out with the action choreography as well, which is pretty cool. There are also some glimpses of creativity in some of the shots. One in particular that stood out to me was a shot that gradually panned out from behind a solitary soldiers shield to show the intensity and scale of the battle that was taking place. It’s just unfortunate that in so many other places in the movie, all we get is lazy, generic camera angles that add nothing to the scene taking place.
Overall, this is a painfully forgettable, mediocre action romp. Do not go in expecting anything of substance or you will most definitely come away disappointed. Though, if all that you are looking for is something to stick on in the background while you do other things or if you are just after an easy, straightforward action adventure popcorn flick, then I guess that you do worse than this. However, bear in mind that that is about the best recommendation that I can give regarding this movie.
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