Director Otto Bathurst brings us the newest incarnation of the classic tale Robin Hood, starring Taron Edgerton and Jaime Foxx. This film takes an age-old story and unsuccessfully attempts to infuse it with some modern flare. Edgerton is solid in the lead role, so much so, that I was imagining him playing the role in a different movie throughout. As I said before, Robin Hood tries to electrify its source material. Bathurst uses an abundance of slow-motion shots, explosive action sequences, and a larger-than-life interpretation of old England to try and achieve this. These things, however, do not work at all.
The concept behind this film is an intriguing one that is poorly executed. My many gripes with the film start with the obnoxious historical inaccuracies. Listen, I know its a fictional story, but really? Can you at least try to make it plausible? The first action sequence of the film follows Robin of Loxley fighting in Arabia as a Crusader. Bows in hand, Robin and his squad get ambushed from the buildings around them. This sequence is ridiculous. I'm not a history buff, but I'm pretty sure the Crusades were not fought in the same manner as wars are fought today. The crusaders in this movie go through houses and streets handling their bows like U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan would, creeping around corners and searching areas. They then get ambushed by Arabians who rain arrows down from above. Seriously, what happened to swords? It literally felt like a scene from The Hurt Locker placed in the 13th century. The action sequences as whole in this movie are filled with explosions, quick-cuts, and slow-mo... So much slo-mo.... It actually got to the point where I though I was watching Mission Impossible 2.
Keeping with the theme of historical inaccuracies, the clothing dawned by the characters in this film often felt out of place and almost modern. The suits worn by Robin in particular looked very close to the ones worn today. Another issue I had was with the accents as they are all over the place in this movie. Between the lead girl who is a middle-easterner in England and Jaime Foxx, who I still have no idea why he was in the film, their accents are a mess and its very easy to forget the movie takes place in England.
In regard to Jaime Foxx, when I saw him in the trailer for this film, I immediately had doubts; and I was right to have them. Not that Foxx is a bad actor, he was just terribly miscast in this movie and stuck-out like a sour thumb. I think casting someone a little less known would have helped in that area, but big names sell I guess. As for Ben Mendelshon, he delivers as always as the villain but is severely underused. The beginning of this movie doesn't take time to develop any of the characters or the world around them and felt very rushed. The training sequences between Foxx and Edgerton, and Robin Hood's early acts, were glossed over by way of montages that made it feel like a trailer for the movie.
Well, That's pretty much all of it. Oh wait... How could I forget? As this movie progressed, I couldn't help but realize the similarities between Robin Hood and Bruce Wayne; two well-off men with tragic pasts who use their power and influence to create an alter ego to help the citizens of their city. Pretty similar, right? That gave me to the idea of making a Robin Hood movie in the same vain as a Batman movie, but little did I know I was watching that already. This movie is literally a remake of The Dark Knight. Its actually laughable how similar it is and how little the creators tried to hide it. The plot at its core is a man returning to his city, determined to change it, and reuniting with an old love only to find out she is with another man now who is lobbying for a position of power with the people behind him. Sound familiar? Let me dumb it down for you.
Robin Hood/Robin of Loxley = Batman/Bruce Wayne
Little John (Robin's trainer) = Lucius Fox
Friar Tuck (Robin's inside-man) = Commissioner Gordon
Marian (Robin's love-interest) = Rachel Dawes
Will Scarlet (Competing love-interest of Marian/rising politician) = Harvey Dent
And if that wasn't enough for you, how about the fact that at the end of film the character of Will actually has half of his face burned by fire becoming... Two-Face??? I mean holy shit. How fucking dumb do you have to be to think no one would notice this? Hopefully, the writers and director knew what they were doing but wow! I mean wow! When I saw Will's face get burned and then him turn into the villain at the conclusion of the film, I actually laughed. So, essentially, while appearing to be a new take on an old tale, Robin Hood is actually something we've seen before.
Overall, Robin Hood is solid popcorn flick that will keep you relatively engaged throughout despite its many flaws and embarrassing similarities with The Dark Knight. If you're a history fan or simply a fan of the Robin Hood story, you probably won't like this movie, which isn't good considering the only people who would see this are Robin Hood fans. Either way, that's a review.
My Score: D+