Movie Review: 'Robin Hood'
“Crazy rich Asian filmmakers” wage war in Nottingham, England. The Chinese love of cinematic excess, exaggerated action, extravagant sets and costumes and unattainable physical prowess have found a home in the countryside of Nottinghamshire. This is the birthplace of the 13th century legend Robehod, Robbehod or Robin Hood as he is more commonly known.
As the tale goes, Robin of Loxley (Taron Egerton) is a noble-born young lord who is conscripted by the evil Sheriff of Nottingham (Ben Mendelsohn) to fight in a war somewhere in Arabia. It is during this conflict he meets Little John, (Jamie Foxx) who will eventually become his friend and mentor.
After four years of fighting, Robin becomes badly wounded and returns to England. Once home, he finds his possessions have been confiscated by the sheriff, his true-love Marion (Eve Hewson) married to someone else and he, himself, declared deceased. Robin and his only remaining friend Friar Tuck (Tim Minchin), see the wicked hand of the sheriff in all these changes and conspire to help the now overtaxed and impoverished citizens of Nottingham to overthrow him and regain the belongings he has stolen from them.
By happenstance, Little John re-enters Robin’s life and sets about training Robin to become a better, stronger more cunning fighter. This 2018 Robin Hood now becomes Robin the Hood!
In this newest version of the story, the basic tale of Robin Hood stealing from the rich and returning the loot to the poor remains the same. In this film, however, Nottingham looks more like New York City than a peaceful village in the countryside of England.
The physical feats performed by the characters are humanly impossible and the dialogue is far too contemporary for English used in the 13th century. Not to mention that the fires and explosions depicted in this film could wipe a small country from the face of the earth.
But then this is a entertaining 2018 up-to-date version of this often told legend. It remains not to know how this story ends, but what lengths the director goes to draw this story to closure. This very likely will not be the final version of the Robin Hood story; what could the next one be like, one wonders – robots in tights?
Directed by Otto Bathurst (Credits: Peaky Blinders, Black Mirror), this is a should see movies that runs for 116 minutes.
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Comments
Wow, is this an odd review. You start off with a bizarre reference to Crazy Asian filmmakers, but this film was directed by Englishman Otto Bathurst and written by noted non-Asians Ben Chandler and David James Kelly. No Asian filmmakers were involved in the project. So right off the bat you're on shaky ground. The review itself is more of a rehash of the Robin Hood story than a review of the movie. You end up saying that it's a "should see movie" but don't offer up any reasons why you think so, other than to say it's "entertaining." Please offer up more "movie review" in your next movie review.
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