I went to watch The Death of Robin Hood last night, and look, I’m just going to say it. The lighting throughout this movie was rough, and the story didn’t exactly save it either. Two hours of my life I could have spent doing literally anything else and probably enjoyed myself more. The sad thing is that I was really looking forward to watching this movie.
Michael Sarnoski directs the film, with Hugh Jackman, Jodie Comer, Bill Skarsgård, and Noah Jupe leading the cast. And with a lineup like that, you automatically think that this movie is going to go places. But if there is anything I’ve learn’t, it’s that strong casts don’t always translate into strong films. Unfortunately this is one of those films.
But here’s what actually stuck with me, and it has nothing to do with the lighting or the pacing. It comes down to one thing. We’ve always been told Robin Hood was the noble outlaw. The celebrated hero who stole from the rich to give to the people who needed it the most. That’s the story we grew up with right?
But that’s not the man we see in this movie. What we see is something far more uncomfortable. We watch someone capable of extraordinary violence. A villainous man who kills, and keeps killing, regardless of whether it’s a man, a woman, or a child that stands in front of him. His conscience only seems to show up right at the very end, almost as an afterthought. And the truth is that, this movie makes it very difficult to reconcile this version of Robin Hood with the legend we have come to know.
This raises an important question that goes far beyond Robin Hood as a character. How much of what we’ve been told throughout our lives is actually true? How many of the stories we accept without question paint a far more heroic picture than the reality ever deserved?And how much of it simply exists to serve whatever agenda needed a hero at the time?
Funny enough, the movie didn’t leave me thinking about Robin Hood. It left me thinking about history… and whether we’ve been telling the wrong stories all along. As for the film itself, the execution doesn’t quite match the weight of what it’s trying to say. The lighting genuinely struggles to do the story justice in several scenes, and the pacing makes those two hours feel considerably longer than they need to. It’s the kind of movie where the idea at its core is more interesting than the actual watching of it.
So I walked into the cinema expecting a fresh take on a familiar legend. I walked out thinking about history, myth, and how easily the line between hero and villain can blur.
That’s probably the most interesting thing The Death of Robin Hood achieves.
Watch The Trailer Here
