Robin Hood steals two hours of your life with its shambles

By Nina Bryant, News Sub-editor

If you were going to go and see the new Robin Hood action-adventure film, starring Taron Egerton and Jamie Foxx, please refrain – you will not regret your decision.

There is no obvious place to start - the content is so poor it seems almost unworthy of criticism. Everything from the script to the acting to the editing is undeniably bad: you couldn’t pay me to see it again.

Being an avid fan of the noughties BBC series (2006-09) and, of course, the legendary 1970s Disney cartoon (1973) - both also simply called 'Robin Hood' – I thought at worst the film might be two hours of gripping content, with the added benefit of a pleasant trip down nostalgia lane.

Sadly, I thought wrong. The film makes no sense. Was it a modern take on English folklore? Was it a futuristic drama? Why was Marian (Eve Hewson) Irish? So many questions with no clear motive from the filmmakers.

The director is BAFTA winner Otto Bathurst, known for the first three episodes of Peaky Blinders (2013-) and an infamous episode of Black Mirror (2011-) featuring a fictitious prime minister and a pig. He somehow manages to turn the well-known legend into a horribly boring storyline, embellished by meaningless action scenes and painfully overused CGI. The film does not know its identity; at the best of times it feels like a historical-superhero-dystopian extravaganza.

Robin Hood is simply a series of random fights where fake fires seem to spontaneously erupt and arrows are shot across what looks like some strange, futuristic city. The detached style makes it feel more like watching someone play a video game than watching a film; which ignores all basic, cinematic principles.

The Sheriff of Nottingham’s overall look, consisting of actor Ben Mendelsohn wearing a smoothed coif and architectural style silver-grey leather coat, resembles a Hunger Games (2012) take on Scandi fashion. Meanwhile, the Maid Marian looks as though she has only just discovered eyeliner. Aesthetically, it is all very confusing.

Whilst attempting to follow the aimless and nonsensical plot and ignore the painful visuals, I was simultaneously trying to work out why someone had thought making this film was necessary. It is not remotely evident what target audience it appeals to, nor does it fill any void in the current collection of Robin Hood cinematic adaptations.

The film is a mess of intermittent slow motion flashbacks, presumably meant to convey the brooding relationship between Robin and Marian, interspersed with uncomfortably fast bow and arrow action. The whole of Robin Hood is an absolute shambles, and enduring it is a taxing endeavour I would not wish on anyone.

Featured Image: Facebook / Larry Horricks / Robin Hood

Will you be checking out Kingsman alum Taron Egerton in this decade's version of Robin Hood?

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