Review- Robin Hood (2018)

Robin Hood (2018) is a telling of the Robin Hood story in 2018 and as literally everyone predicted, it is bad. Am I done yet? No? Fine, I'll talk more. We all know the story of Robin Hood because it's a pretty big part of British mythology and, ya know, it's had roughly 2 million films made about it in the last fifty years. The important thing though is that none of that matters because, as the film tells us, we should "forget everything you think you know about this story", the irony being that I am forgetting everything about this film. Robin of Loxley is a Lord in Nottingham who enjoys repeatedly kissing Marian on the lips while cameras spin around him. His life of luxury and playground pecking is brought to a close however when he is enlisted in the Third Crusade and has to go to what I swear isn't a war zone in Iraq. When he comes back, everyone thinks he's dead and so he has to go rob from the nasty Sheriff or something. Marian has a new beau, Friar Tuck sounds oddly Australian and the miners are trying to from a union. I'm honestly not sure what else happens before the sequel setup so I'll leave it there and save the sequel set up for the last paragraph. Basically, it's a story you know but it's wearing a funny shirt that says "no, you definitely don't know me".

The performances in this film are interesting because the cast are largely very talented actors who are doing their best to put in serious performances in a film that is, fairly obviously, not that serious. Taron Edgerton plays Rob (yup, that's what they call him) and he isn't offensively bad, he's just convinced this is his Batman. Coming in as Alfred/Little John is Jamie Foxx who is also very silly. He loses a hand at one point and I feel like he could have done with going all out and replacing it with a hook. Going over to silly though, there's Ben Mendehlson as the Sheriff of Nottingham who shouts and then whispers and then sometimes both things. Again, absurd stuff but to the degree where it's pretty funny. They're the core three but bringing up the rear, Tim Minchin is a slightly Australian version of Friar Tuck with no point. Marian (who is not a maid but a thief) is played by a woman called Eve Hewson and not to insult her but while she's pretty, she may be the worst actor in the film. Fortunately, she gets paired off with charisma machine (it is sarcasm, you see) Jamie Dornan who has escaped Fifty Shades but instead of taking the Dakota Johnson route of stylish thrillers or arthouse horror has fallen straight into another diabolical franchise. So, great job team.

When it comes to just about everything else in this film, it's hard to know what to laugh at first. Maybe the thing that stuck with me first was the pacing. See, I wear a watch but at the start of the film, the battery died and so I had no idea where I was in the film. Just as it felt like the third act was wrapping up and the film was ending, the REAL third act turns up and I am a man in pain. The effects are laughable too, from the slow down speed up style of the editing to the worst green screen most people will have seen this year, unless they're unfortunate enough to have seen Johnny English Strikes Again. I guess worst of all though was the sequel setup and if anyone wants to leave this review with the film unspoiled, sorry but you deserve this. Ben Mendehlson dies at the end, Rob wins back Marian, Jamie Dornan burns his face. All seems moderately wrapped up except Rob and a merry bunch of men (do you get it?) venture into Sherwood Forrest (DO YOU GET IT?) and Jamie Dornan becomes the new Sheriff. It is a luaghable sequel setup, made only more laughable by how badly the film bombed, meaning that there will never be a sequel to this mess. I'd say that fact is the best thing about this film.

I didn't like Robin Hood and often I was pretty bored but honestly, I have seen worse this year. We're edging a little closer to the bottom of the barrel but there is still worse to be seen for sure. The action is poor, the story is ludicrous and the acting flits between over the top and sleepy. It is as hot a mess as we all expected a 2018 Robin Hood remake to be and I have no qualms giving it a