Robin Hood - Review

Release Date: November 23, 2018​​​​​​

Another Tale as Old as Time

​The influx in modern tellings of fairy tales doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. While the financially successful ones come from Disney, they all suffer from not being very good. Robin Hood joins the club and never thinks about straying from the pack. It attempts to retell the story of a thief giving back to the poor, only this time he doesn't really care about the poor people. This reincarnation of the classic story contorts itself, becoming unrecognizable when looking at other movies like it.

​Robin Hood tries to keep most of its action in camera, which is nice. It is not devoid of CG, but most of the big action sets seem to be done practically. This aspect really helped the movie when it came to chase scenes or on location shooting. It created a sense of realism that went a long way into making me believe what I was seeing. When there was CG, it wasn't obtrusive or attention-grabbing.

​There were many things in Robin Hood that I was not expecting, but the most surprising aspect of the movie was theft. I could not believe how many ideas this movie stole from other films. It blows my mind how

anyone thought it would be okay to rip off plot points, scenes, action set pieces, and editing styles wholesale. When the movie wasn't ripping off Skyfall, it was trying to be The Dark Knight; while it was focused on being a worse Guy Ritchie movie, it made all of its characters one dimensional. There is no shortage of tropes or cliches that this movie uses to achieve mediocrity.

This is a point of contention for me with this movie. There is a scene really early on that depicts one of the Crusades. It has a small team of archers trying to infiltrate a city and they eventually fall into an ambush. It’s directed like a modern day military movie; complete with being pinned down by enemy fire, moving through hallways, and general modern military tactics. That is not how wars were fought in the 11th century. They didn't have small archer squads go into a city that could call for catapult support and rain rocks from the sky. The addition of a fancy party at a casino didn't rub me the right way either. There were too many modern tropes that didn't belong in a medieval time period.

​This is not a movie you should see, full stop. It honestly offers nothing new or fun to the audience. You would have a much better time seeing the movie it takes all of its style queues from, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. But just like that movie, it tries to set up a franchise that will never see the light of day. Like I said before, none of the modern fairy tale movies are that good; though Robin Hood is in a league of its own at the very bottom of the list.

4/10
"I’ve been robbed of my time and money" - Anonymous