Robin Hood ** (2018, Taron Egerton, Jamie Foxx, Ben Mendelsohn, Eve Hewson, Tim Minchin, Jamie Dornan, F Murray Abraham) – Movie Review

Another Robin Hood film? Really? Though it is amazingly eight years since Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood (2010), director Otto Bathurst’s 2018 Robin Hood just goes to show that it is not nearly long enough.

Cheeky chappy modern-day actor Taron Egerton is miscast and struggling as war-hardened Crusader Sir Robin of Loxley. He plays it just like his unrefined, but promising street kid Eggsy in Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) and Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017), so that makes a mockery of the film’s much repeated idea that he is a posh bloke stealing from his kind – the rich – and giving to the poor, and stirring the poor up to revolution. Of course, Ben Chandler and David James Kelly’s screenplay gives him modern-day dialogue to utter, making a mockery of the film’s olde days setting, though the film starts by refusing to tell us when it is set and says it won’t bore us with history. Insulting the value of history, eh? This is dumbing-down on an insulting level.

With story by Ben Chandler, the film pretends that it has a new story to tell, but actually of course it tells the same old story once again, and surprisingly poorly, lacking charm and a sense of adventure and fun. First-time movie director Otto Bathurst tries to make up for this by throwing on the CGI and slow-motion action. This totally wrecks credibility and the enjoyment of the story. We are told at the beginning that we don’t know the story – but we do! Sir Robin returns from four years fighting the Crusades, finds his mansion wrecked and stuff stolen by the corrupt and greedy Sheriff of Nottingham, falls for Marian, meets up again with Moorish commander John (Jamie Foxx) and mounts a revolt against the Sheriff and the equally corrupt English crown.

If Egerton is weak, Eve Hewson is wan, dull and poor as Maid Marian, Tim Minchin is terrible as an inexplicably thin Friar Tuck (he’s supposed to be the comedy relief but he isn’t funny), an unengaged seeming Jamie Foxx can’t bring any authority as Moorish commander Little John, Jamie Dornan lacks charm or appeal as Will Scarlett who is canoodling with Marian, F Murray Abraham can’t make an impression as the evil Cardinal (but the has only two little scenes), and Ben Mendelsohn, with a lot of screen time, is merely a flat stereotype random villain as the Sheriff of Nottingham. These are all good actors, but they are not good here.

Does anyone remember Alan Wheatley as the Sheriff of Nottingham in TV’s The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955-1960), a brilliantly devious and cunning, suave and sophisticated arch villain? His is the definitive incarnation of the Sheriff of Nottingham, though Alan Rickman comes a close second in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Basil Rathbone starred as the main villain in the classic 1938 The Adventures of Robin Hood (still the greatest Robin Hood movie by far) and his is the definitive incarnation of Sir Guy of Gisbourne, a role played badly here by Paul Anderson.

There are enough lustily staged battles and fights to divert the attention, and, when the CGI is allowed to rest up for a little moment, it is clear that there is a decent, obviously costly production at the basis of the thing. In its favour, Robin Hood is not slow, and it is not boring, but then it is not really much good either.

The hoodie Egerton wears in the movie and poster is machine stitched when of course there were no machines to stitch hoodies. It is a funny idea that Robin Hood would wear a hoodie but hey it looks daft and anachronistic, and contributes further to damaging Egerton’s credibility as Sir Robin.

If it has no sense of mediaeval Nottingham, England, that is perhaps because it is filmed in Croatia and Hungary, and in the studio in Budapest, Hungary.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

Jamie Foxx and Taron Egerton play Little John and Robin Hood in 2017’s Robin Hood.