Robin Hood

In the last 110 years Robin Hood has appeared onscreen approximately 77 times. Films, TV shows, cartoons, short movies as both a main and supporting character. He's been a woman, a fox, a gangster played by Frank Sinatra. You'd think we'd be sick to the back teeth of him by now. But nope, now we have a new film and there are at least 7 projects about him or related to him in development at the moment. But I've a feeling that number will drop rapidly when audiences get a look at the film being released this week.

Robin of Loxley was a nobleman leaving near the city of Nottingham. Life was good and he had a beautiful woman named Marian by his side until one day he was drafted into battle and sent to the Third Holy Crusade in an effort to bring the "one true religion" to the Middle East. The Nottingham he later returns home to bears little resemblance to the one he left. Now it's up to Robin to get things sorted out and him and his new buddy John waste no time in getting to it.

This is not a good film. It takes a brilliant story, one rich in detail and packed with vividly drawn characters and pukes modernity all over it. It's not quite as bad as last years King Arthur movie but it gets close at times. Horrible slow motion, manky music, stupid action scenes, it's bizarre and unnecessary kinda sorta not quite modern not quite medieval worldbuilding, barely sketched characters, it's near 2 hr running time seeming like twice that while still somehow feeling like it's missing whole chunks of story. It's an absolutely unnecessary film and adds nothing to the myth of Robin Hood. It's opening voice over promises a new take on the story and then straight away tells us the same aul shite again. A couple of plotlines and characters take a different route than what we've seen before but Robin's story stays exactly the same. A rich spoiled boy experiences the horror of war and comes back a changed man and decides to help the poor instead of the rich. We've seen this story 77 times already. We don't need to see it again.

At first I had an inkling that it might be ok. Taron Egerton had the makings of a charming Robin, Eve Hewson (lil Bono) was a cool Marian, Paul Anderson (so good in Peaky Blinders) as a nicely nasty Guy Of Gisborne, an action sequence set in Saudi Arabia shot like a US Marine raid on an Al-Qaeda compound promised gritty and violent action and it was all moving along smoothly and with a minimum of fuss and then it just.........went horribly wrong. It's hard to pinpoint the moment it goes bad but I can think of plenty of contenders. John's (Jamie Foxx, channelling Morgan Freeman and failing miserably) motivations and escape to England come to mind or maybe it's the appearance of Ben Mendehlson as a painfully panto-esque Sheriff of Nottingham. It might be the training montage ripped straight out of a Rocky film that will make you roll your eyes in shame or maybe it's seeing Marian going from interesting and mysterious to making goo-goo eyes at Robin and turning into a big ol' cliche. The bad far outweighs the good here and the stuff that works just invokes memories of better takes on the story. Gimme Kevin Costner and Alan Rickman and their magnificent mullets anyday.

You won't miss anything by missing this and I can safely say the sequel hinted at in the closing moments of the film will not be happening. The only audience it could possibly appeal to will be kids new to the story and then the violence of it's opening third will probably terrify them. Everyone else will just be laughing at the stupidity onscreen and not in a good way. I think it's time for the legend of Robin Hood to get an arrow through it's heart.