First Take: Robin Hood- stealing the ticket prices of the rich, to make a poor film

SYNOPSIS:

A war-hardened Crusader and his Moorish commander mount an audacious revolt against the corrupt English crown in a thrilling action-adventure packed with gritty battlefield exploits, mind-blowing fight choreography, and a timeless romance.

Thrilling action-adventure? Mind-blowing choreography? I smell Bullsmit, ladies and gentlemen. This film was anticipated to be awful, and boy howdy, do we have a rant-worthy feature that is (surprisingly) really enjoyable, considering how many times we’ve seen this story done on the big screen before.

Otto Bathurst (best known for directing the infamous episode of Black Mirror involving a pig, and a prime minister) is commanding his first feature film, and by god, this is a mess- setpiece, after setpiece, obvious CGI, and moments that literally defy belief (the first bit of the film does tell you to ‘forget history’ after all). It feels like it should work better as a TV show, as the pacing is all over the place, the slow motion archetype is overused ridiculously, and once you add a super problematic script from Ben Chandler and David James Kelly, this film really does start to feel like a 1 hour 56 minute slog. It’s shot well by George Steel, and Joseph Trapanese’s score just about does the job.

Performance wise, Taron Egerton is OK as the man himself- he isn’t perfect, but considering this is him doing ‘ye olde Kingsman’, he is pretty fine for the role, but not quite good enough considering the standard of his work so far (hopefully Rocketman gets him back on track). Accompanying him is Jamie Foxx, Eve Hewson (as a pretty damn capable Maid Marian), Jamie Dornan, Ben Mendelsohn, and…wait a minute- TIM MINCHIN? Guess he really does have a dark side then. Look, this cast are decent, it’s the script and direction that lets this film down compared to the other releases this week- there are other films you can be seeing, and to give you all an idea about how Lionsgate touted this film, Leo DiCaprio got a producer credit. Don’t think I can say more than that really.

THE VERDICT

This film accidentally passed the 6 laugh test due to how dumb and stupid it got- to say why would spoil some of the film’s ending, but do not be surprised if this film tanks, because it is so bad, it’s good. All of the cast have got some killer projects lined up, so I don’t blame them for doing this on the cheap, because audiences will get a kick out of this film, but not in the way it was intended.

RATING- 3/5