The Death of Robin Hood

Anchored by a powerful performance by Hugh Jackman, writer-director Michael Sarnoski’s The Death of Robin Hood is an excellent movie that takes a wrecking ball to the conventional story of a popular legend.

Bold, brutal yet surprisingly sensitive, it’s about as far away from Errol Flynn’s Technicolor tights or Kevin Costner’s mullet as you can imagine.

Beautifully, gloomily shot by Sarnoski regular Pat Scola—the misty far reaches of Northern Island sub in for medieval England—The Death of Robin Hood lets Jackman’s weary performance guide its journey into quietness and, as its title suggests, death.

Sarnoski and Jackman take a name associated with heroic antics and remove that element, asking the viewer to engage with smaller, more human stakes. The gambit is daring, but it’s never uninteresting.

Truth be told, this is hard-going as a movie-watching experience, a “Quest for Fire” without humor or sex, a “Robin and Marian” without romance, a “Robin Hood” without “merry” men, just accomplices.

It’s easy enough to admire the evident technical merits, yes, but difficult to find any element that invites a viewer into the specific, soulful experience of the characters. As The Death of Robin Hood circles the obvious ending, the main point of reflection it invites is the missed opportunity to flesh out this world with a level of detail on par with its ambitions.

Oddly pretentious, this is one of those annoying films that drones on about the weight and importance of storytelling rather than telling a weighty or important story.

A meditative, introspective look at a darker twist of a fable that doesn't always land its ideas perfectly or delve enough into its ideas, yet benefits from great yisual craft as well as one of the performing highlights of Hugh Jackman's career. Accompanied by strong, interesting direction from Sarnoski, the film's silky, slow pace is marred only by a strangely breezy third act. A great watch, though, engaging throughout and works swell as a mood piece

Seeing a known actor like Hugh Jackman and a popular folklore character, Robin Hood, managed to pique my interest to watch this movie. It's a slow-paced movie about the life of Robin Hood before his death. This is not the Robin Hood we know but a darker one. I am having trouble with the dialog in this movie since the dialog is soft-spoken and has an accent; the lack of subtitles also didn't help. The movie shows how Robin now changes and longs for death as he regrets his younger days' actions. The visuals in this show are amazing since they manage to convince me that they are in a separate time period. In addition to the prop, the outfit and building that fit the narrative really sell it to me. Nevertheless, I can understand why people dislike this movie because it doesn't really have a point; they manage to sneak in some action, but it's quite short. They're trying to focus on his last moment, so it's more of a slice of life. Overall I think the rating will be low since it is quite less than other movies I watch with more impact; I'm thinking about rewatching once there are subtitles, but maybe then the rating will change.

Shot on film - looks unbelievable. That is pretty much the only thing going for The Death of Robin Hood. Reimagines the outlaw as a despicable, murderous criminal, who is now an old man filled with pain and lifelessness. The first half is ultra violent and feels as if it could lead somewhere. The second half comes to a screeching halt and lays down for a nap. And then nothing really happens.

This reminded me of Tom Hanks in Inferno, somehow. There, they tried to make one of the best drama actors into an action star by making him run around all the time, playing parkour. Here they make Hugh Jackman, one of the most entertaining action stars of our time, into a freaking drama actor. While the story of Robin Hood has been told many a times over, there was great potential for this interpretation. However, the execution, script and cast were simply all wrong for this to be considered good.

Too dark. Too bloody. I'm surprised Jack Hughman decided to star in this. He's so good as Van Helsing and The Wolverine. This is just torture.