Spoiler Review—‘Robin Hood’

It has been a total of eight years since the last attempt to bring a successful Robin Hood franchise to the screen. Although it is not as frequent as the the likes of the Spider-Man and Batman franchises, there is a valid reason for that in which I will discuss here. As usual, this is a spoiler review so look away, do not read on, read at your own peril, *insert warning here*.

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Right, so I assume you have seen the latest Robin Hood film, or you just can't be bothered watching it because of the recent reviews and just want to cut to the chase about why it is so bad. Now, in my opinion, the reviews are harsh. Yes I said it. Probably quite the unpopular opinion, but this film has potential. However there are mostly definitely broken pieces that need some super-strong super glue to be fixed if this were to actually grow into a franchise.

The film follows the young Lord Robin of Loxsley (fun fact—unnecessary change of spelling right there), played by the entertaining Taron Egerton, who is ordered to leave his land and lover Marian, portrayed by the frankly boring Eve Hewson, to fight in the Crusades. Fast forward four years and Robin is sent home for alleged treason where he finds his home of Nottingham in ruins and his own name forgotten as he was declared dead two years earlier. From here Loxley (seriously, why change it to an X?) joins forces with the Arab fighter that followed him home known as John, played by the electrifying (no Amazing Spider-Man 2 pun intended) Jamie Foxx, to bring down the menacing Sheriff of Nottingham, played by the deliciously evil Ben Mendelsohn. Oh yeah, and Jamie Dornan and Tim Minchin are in it but we'll get to them later.

Now first things first, Egerton is good as a younger, more energetic Robin. Really good. We see him really make that switch from spoilt rich boy to hardened hero and go on that journey of learning to be a hero and fighting for not only his home but for England.

There is also another aspect of Egerton's performance that is brilliant, but the story that comes with it is where the story is at a fault. Part of Robin's returning home to take from the rich and give to the poor consists of him playing up to the locals, the Sheriff included, that he is still a bratty rich kid so as to drive away suspicion of him being the thief robbing from the riches of Nottingham. Does this sound familiar? It's Batman. Director Otto Bathurst plus writers Ben Chandler and David James Kelly have transformed Robin Hood into Batman. Is it good for Egerton's performance? Absolutely; he does the switching of personas perfectly. But unfortunately, we live in an age where superhero cliches rule the roost of cinema. Why is that unfortunate? For the simple reason that it lessens the effect that this story could have given if not for the stories we have seen through actors Christian Bale and Ben Affleck in the past decade alone.

Bathurst definitely brings in a blend of classic and contemporary traits to this Robin Hood film, but the dual identity should have been left alone. There were definitely other avenues Lionsgate could have gone down to step away from the traditional 'he is Robin Hood, we know him, we know what he does' narrative, but clearly they chose a more familiar, maybe too much of familiar avenue.

However, this aspect of the story is bearable I suppose, thanks to the leading man. There is then the most famous budding relationship of the old folklore; the friendship of Robin Hood and Little John. Like every great on-screen friendship, it begins bitterly in this film. John (whose name is pretty much unpronounceable in Arabic and leads to a funny moment from our leading man Egerton) bares witness to the death of his son and loses a hand (weirdly a cool separation from the source material), which leads to Robin defending John and his people, which in turn is the knock on effect that leads to John believing Robin is one of a kind and a man who can stop the Sheriff from destroying England. From there, we get our montage of John training Robin to shoot arrows at an alarmingly fast rate with some typical muscle building as well (think Ra's Al Ghul and Bruce Wayne in the first quarter of Batman Begins......yep, Batman nod again).

It is fair to say that Foxx nails this new take on Little John. He is of course of a different ethnicity than we are used to, and he acts as a sort of mentor to this younger version of Robin. It is a different dynamic for these two characters, with older versions showing Robin as more of the superior whereas here we have Foxx's John very much in control.

We now come onto the big bad of the story. Mendelsohn as the Sheriff is a stroke of genius, but he is just lucky that pretty much all of his evil roles call for him to play pretty much the same person. If you had no sense of set design or story telling, you would this film was some kind of sequel to Rogue One as Mendelsohn acts pretty much the same as Director Krennic. Having said that, Mendelsohn is great. He is brilliantly evil and every line of dialogue he speaks just wreaks of villainy and interest. It is unfortunate that the character faced a gruesome and unexpected hanging, as we would have loved for him to come back in a sequel I'm sure, even though a sequel isn't very expected at this juncture.

There is then the supposed romantic relationship of Robin and Marion. This is probably one of the most iconic loving relationships in fiction history alongside Superman and Lois Lane...so why didn't it work in this film? This story shows Marion to have fallen in love with Jamie Dornan's Will Scarlett by the time Robin returns home due to her believing him to be dead. However, it is clear over the course of the film that they will get back together and gosh darn it they do by the films end! Sadly, it just doesn't feel real. Hewles does bring her own take on Maid Marion to the film and gives her a strong and independent edge, but her performance doesn't give the character credit. On paper the character has so much potential to shine and be fun and even dangerous, but in my eyes Hewles doesn't give the part enough and even for screen acting she doesn't give the cameras enough emotion or energy at times.

Oh yeah, speaking of Will Scarlet...Well, he's in it. So is Friar Tuck, played by Tim Minchin. Now, I like Tim Minchin, he is a great comedian but in his film he doesn't bring that usual comedic flair. There are parts where Tuck could be portrayed as hysterical and it should land well, but Minchin acts too much like this is a stage play (even in his narration) and it takes the edge off the portrayal.

Then there is also Jamie Dornan's Will. The character's motivations come off as scattered and confusing, showing Scarlett to be a man of the people who wants the poor respected and looked after, eventually transforming into the new Sheriff of Nottingham, complete with half of his face burnt to a crisp (Harvey Dent nod...SERIOUSLY! BATMAN!). We understand that his love went off with her old boyfriend who has seemingly risen from the dead, that would leave a bad taste in anyone's mouth, but for him to change his complete outlook on life and his ideals because of it? Come on. Also, doesn't this love triangle remind you a bit of the Harvey Dent/Bruce Wayne/Rachel Dawes one in The Dark Knight? (Bloody Acting Too Much Alike Now).

The ending of the film is decent. It shows Robin saving the day; his identity being revealed, the Mendelsohn's Sheriff is dead, Nottingham got a bloody big kick up the butt and the innocent people of Nottingham are now being led into Sherwood Forest by Robin, John and Marion. Just as the evil Cardinal, portrayed by Amadeus' spellbinding F. Murray Abraham, appoints Scarlet as the new Sheriff, and the latter gives his first speech to his subjects, Robin makes a point of his legacy and motives by shooting a wanted poster of himself out of Scarlet's hand. If a sequel were to be made, which is doubtful, it could be great. With the Cardinal having a strong actor and a Prince John-esque feel to him, he could make for a worthy nemesis further down the line. Growth of Dornan's character would have maybe given more explanations and acceptance of how we leave him. Actually getting a contemporary film that features Robin Hood and his Merry Men active in Sherwood Forest would be a treat. There is more that can unfold. But unfortunately, everything online is telling us we will be due yet another reboot in another decade or so.

With Sony and Disney slated to release their own Robin Hood films somewhere down the line, could we finally get a Robin Hood film that spawns a second instalment? We'll see. Having said that, why should a Robin Hood franchise not be attempted as much as the likes of a Spider-Man franchise? Robin Hood is a character that has been a part of the fictional world for centuries now. With being created in such a different era and with characters that can be changed and switched using todays ideals and creativity, the story can maybe change too much. What happens then? The story becomes stale. Batman has been around for over 75 years and we have had so many different takes on him and has that character become stale? Yes. I am personally dreading the idea of Ben Affleck potentially leaving the role and a new version stepping in so soon. Imagine if this was done so frequently with Robin Hood. Thankfully, even though there have been many adaptations in the past, Robin Hood isn't touched oh so frequently, certainly not in the 21st century at least.

This Robin Hood film gets a 7.5/10 from me. Robin Hood is showing in cinemas now.