{"id":530596,"date":"2026-06-11T22:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T22:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/530596\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T22:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T22:38:12","slug":"the-death-of-robin-hood-review-hugh-jackman-in-revisionist-take","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/530596\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Death of Robin Hood’ Review: Hugh Jackman in Revisionist Take"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tListen, I\u2019m no Robin Hood purist. I\u2019m more than willing to see a revisionist take on the legendary folk hero who\u2019s been portrayed on screen many, many times. Sure, I\u2019m partial to a fun, rascally Robin Hood, as embodied by Errol Flynn. Or a mature, pensive Robin Hood, by Sean Connery. Or a surly, vengeful Robin Hood, by Kevin Costner. Hell, I even enjoyed Cary Elwes\u2019 parodistic Robin Hood in one of Mel Brooks\u2019 lesser efforts, Robin Hood: Men in Tights. So if director-screenwriter Michael Sarnoski<\/a> (Pig<\/a>, A Quiet Place: Day One<\/a>) wants to give us a radical version that tells us, as the film\u2019s marketing informs, \u201cHe was no hero,\u201d fine.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnfortunately, the filmmaker is so keen to make good on his premise that The Death of Robin Hood becomes a tedious slog. You spend most of the film\u2019s overlong running time wishing that its main character would die a quicker death.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe Death of Robin Hood\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n

\tNot very merry.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRelease date<\/strong>: Friday, June 19
Cast<\/strong>: Hugh Jackman, Jodie Comer, Bill Skarsgard, Murray Bartlett, Noah Jupe, Faith Delaney
Director-screenwriter<\/strong>: Michael Sarnoski
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRated R,
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2 hours 3 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tHugh Jackman<\/a>, outfitted with a flowing grey mane and a bushy, straggly beard that makes him look like a yeti, plays a solitary Robin who\u2019s long been separated from his Merry Men. He wanders the 13th-century countryside, always enveloped in mist, in a severe depression. It seems he\u2019s tormented by the knowledge that he wasn\u2019t really a hero who stole from the rich and gave to the poor, but rather a ruthless, murderous criminal who apparently had a very good publicist.<\/p>\n

\n\tRobin wants to give up his violent ways, but just when he thought he was out, he\u2019s pulled back in by his old cohort Little John (an unrecognizable Bill Skarsgard<\/a>), who recruits him for one final battle. It doesn\u2019t go well for Robin, who winds up gravely injured and wakes to find himself recovering at a remote priory where he\u2019s tended to by the kindhearted Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer<\/a>, intriguingly restrained).<\/p>\n

\n\tConsidering that we\u2019re talking about Hugh Jackman and Jodie Comer, you might think that a romantic relationship between their characters would develop. But this isn\u2019t that kind of movie. Rather, Robin edges toward a kind of moral salvation by becoming a mentor to Margaret (Faith Delaney, Here<\/a>), a troubled little girl whose father was killed in the battle, and the young Arthur (Hamnet<\/a>\u2018s Noah Jupe), out for revenge and suffering from an injury that cost him an eye. Robin also strikes up a friendship with a soulful, philosophical leper (Murray Bartlett<\/a>, covered in wrappings from head to toe), who somehow recognizes his good qualities.<\/p>\n

\n\tVery little happens in the film, and since both Robin and Sister Brigid are quite taciturn there\u2019s not much in the way of scintillating dialogue either. Rather, the filmmaker leans heavily on mood-setting, using such methods as a shifting color palette (when some vibrant hues finally permeate the gloom, it feels like an oasis in the desert), varying aspect ratios, harsh sound design, and a folk-music score suitable for funerals. The extreme violence is rendered in graphic, gory fashion that seeks to remind you that medieval England was no country for old men.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s all very atmospheric, including the frequent bloodlettings that Sister Brigid applies to Robin\u2019s arm (the camera lingers lovingly on every spilled drop). But the dour, humorless proceedings never achieve the profundity they\u2019re aiming for, and the revisionist take on Robin doesn\u2019t prove very interesting or revelatory. And while Jackman brings an undeniable grizzled intensity to the role \u2014 his Wolverine is practically a cut-up by comparison \u2014 the performance is so off-putting that you never engage with the character. \u201cI\u2019m tired,\u201d Robin proclaims early on. By the time the film ends, you\u2019ll feel exhausted as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen, I\u2019m no Robin Hood purist. I\u2019m more than willing to see a revisionist take on the legendary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[263],"tags":[77639,18,117,25885,21636,19,17,36543,137992,327,138007],"class_list":["post-530596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-bill-skarsgard","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-hamnet","tag-hugh-jackman","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jodie-comer","tag-michael-sarnoski","tag-movies","tag-murray-bartlett"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116733876994622678","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}