New Hood’s no good

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This article was published 21/11/2018 (2567 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the 1991 version of the Robin Hood story, Prince of Thieves, critics and audiences alike giggled at star Kevin Costner’s wavering accent and Midwestern demeanour.

In the 2018 version, Taron Egerton has the British bona fides, but sadly, this latest iteration of the tale of the outlaw hero of the Middle Ages is no better a contribution to the canon. It’s an empty exercise in overblown action and muddy plotting, with barely a whiff of fun.

In some versions of the timeworn tale, Robin of Loxley is a commoner. Here, he’s Sir Robin, a lord sent away from his life of leisure with his feisty love Marian (Eve Hewson) by the Sheriff of Nottingham (inveterate villain Ben Mendelsohn) to fight in the Crusades.

Under the command of Guy of Gisbourne (Paul Anderson of Peaky Blinders), Robin dutifully fights for four years, until he defies his commander by freeing a Moorish soldier (Jamie Foxx) whose son is about to be killed by the British.

Sent back to England, he finds his estate in ruins, plundered by the evil sheriff for his war chest. Believing him dead, Marian has moved on with Will Scarlet (50 Shades of Grey’s Jamie Dornan).

Unaccountably, although luckily, the Moor — whose Arabic name translates to John — has followed Robin home and pledges to help him wreak revenge on the corrupt church and sheriff who are taxing and tolling the people of Nottingham into penury.

With the assistance of John and a brief training montage that might be the best part of the movie, Robin hones his archery skills and sets off on his campaign to rob the rich to give to the poor.

With an arched eyebrow and a wicked grin, Egerton has charm to spare, but it’s wasted in a film that turns Robin from a swashbuckling renegade into a one-man death machine. What should be thrilling feats of derring-do are wholesale slaughters of faceless, helmeted soldiers.

Foxx, meanwhile, is underused as a sidekick and the reliable Mendelsohn (Bloodline) is hamstrung in a laughably villainous role.

The script by Ben Chandler and David James Kelly feels as if it’s ticking off boxes, in such a rush to get to the next plot point that there’s no time for character or caring. The boxes they’ve inserted to break up the action — romance, comic relief — fail miserably for lack of chemistry and humour (though Tim Minchin tries valiantly for the latter as Friar Tuck).

The script is full of squandered potential and half-explored ideas that are trampled under the hooves of too many effect-heavy battles and too much moustache-twirling; when the sheriff gives a very of-the-moment speech about holding back the hordes of advancing Arabians he claims are a threat to the British way of life, any hope that the filmmakers are developing a Brexit or Trump metaphor is short-lived.

There’s a strong anti-religion strain running through the film, too, but it’s not properly explored, other than by having the cardinal (F. Murray Abraham, purring with Roman menace) practically wear horns.

And even if you focus solely on the action, despite the whizzing arrows, galloping horses and rain of golden coins, it’s all oddly boring, bogged down with leaden dialogue, a tone that’s far too dark, and a relentless, bombastic soundtrack that tries to make you forget that you can’t actually see what’s going on in the muddled, quick-cut fight and chase scenes.

The all-over-the-place accents are distracting. Egerton’s feels like a holdover from his role as London street kid Eggsy in the Kingsman movies, more working-class than nobleman. Dornan’s using his native Irish brogue, while Hewson (daughter of U2’s Bono) seems to be suppressing her Irish accent and replacing it with an American one.

The film is also pointedly but pointlessly anachronistic in a way that feels more lazy than whimsical, sometimes dressing its 1300s-era characters in costumes that recall the Hunger Games (Mendelsohn’s tailored leather trench makes it seem as if he just popped over from playing Imperial officer Orson Krennic in Rogue One) or J. Crew catalogue shoots (Foxx and Egerton hanging like bros in their grey waffle henleys).

Audaciously, Robin Hood’s final scene seems to set the stage for a sequel. Methinks Nottingham.

jill.wilson@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @dedaumier