{"id":860833,"date":"2026-06-11T22:30:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T22:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/860833\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T22:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T22:30:19","slug":"the-death-of-robin-hood-review-hugh-jackman-in-a-revisionist-spin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/860833\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Death of Robin Hood’ Review: Hugh Jackman in a Revisionist Spin"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThere are no merry men to be found in \u201cThe Death of Robin Hood<\/a>,\u201d an elegiac portrait of the famed folk hero that eventually delivers on its title, but not before an extended bout of myth-busting and moral reckoning. Following a dip into studio franchise waters with \u201cA Quiet Place: Day One\u201d two years ago, the third feature from writer-director Michael Sarnoski<\/a> sees him returning to the intimate scope and melancholic timbre of his debut \u201cPig\u201d \u2014 this despite story material far more accustomed to blockbuster treatment on screen. Starring a Gandalf-coiffed Hugh Jackman<\/a> as a battle-worn Robin Hood weary of his heroic reputation, Sarnoski\u2019s revisionist interpretation dares to suggest that his life of crime wasn\u2019t in fact charitably motivated; his quest here is an interior one, to salvage his soul from the lie he\u2019s been living.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe result is pensive, sensitive and bracingly low on derring-do, though it\u2019s also a little one-note. Sarnoski deromanticizes the legend with keen attention to historic and atmospheric detail, and a studious interest in how stories are told and retold through time. But the sad smallness (or small sadness) of the story it settles on instead is both the point of the exercise and a slow, steady downer from the get-go. Beautifully shot and designed in a full rainbow of earth and stone and sackcloth, and performed with grace and conviction by Jackman and a well-chosen ensemble \u2014 including Jodie Comer<\/a> as a stoic abbess nursing our man, if not to health, at least to peace \u2014 this is a production of unimpeachable integrity and intelligence, and a commendably mature bit of summer counter-programming from distributor A24. But it almost wears its dourness as a badge of honor.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Death of Robin Hood\u201d is actually the second film to take as its inspiration an alternate narrative from the ancient ballad \u201cA Gest of Robyn Hode,\u201d which concluded with the aging hero in the care of a murderous prioress, finally meeting his maker at her hands. Richard Lester\u2019s 1976 \u201cRobin and Marian\u201d redesigned the story as a bittersweet autumn-years love story, conflating the roles of the prioress and Maid Marian. Sarnoski\u2019s version likewise recasts the female character as a benevolent force, and is largely stripped of romance \u2014 though permits itself a streak of sentimentality in a subplot concerning the grizzled outlaw\u2019s gentle bond with a young girl.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe predominantly stern tone of proceedings is established, however, by an opening sequence that introduces Robin as a lone-wolf nomad, living off what little the land has to offer after years of war and pillaging, and briefly sharing fire and food with a young female drifter (Jade Croot, from last year\u2019s \u201cRabbit Trap\u201d) before stabbing her in the head. The year is 1247, seemingly empty word of his heroic goodness has long passed into local lore, and all the \u201cwrecked and wanton\u201d killer now wants is \u201ca right death.\u201d Before that can happen, however, he\u2019s roped into one final skirmish: He\u2019s unexpectedly visited by Little John (Bill Skarsg\u00e5rd), once one of his underage criminal accomplices, and asked to help defend the younger man\u2019s family and homestead from vengeful past foes.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe conflict that ensues is startling in the intensity of its violence, as bodies brawl and break in the mud, flaming torches are taken to the face, and red-hot blades are seared into flesh. Sarnoski initially seems to be pursuing a kind of fever-dream hellishness akin to the battle scenes of Robert Eggers\u2019 \u201cThe Northman,\u201d though bloodthirsty thrill-seekers would be advised to load up on the film\u2019s first half-hour: There\u2019s a marked shift in mood, rhythm and volume once Robin, left brutally wounded and unconscious in the clash, wakes up in the serene priory overseen by Sister Brigid (Comer), who has opened its doors to all left alone and unsheltered in this ongoing climate of terror.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong his fellow residents are a masked, unnamed leper (Murray Bartlett), whose sanguine acceptance of his misfortune sets the tone for Robin\u2019s own spiritual self-confrontation; Arthur (Noah Jupe), grievously injured in the same battle, and reluctantly tasked with revenge on the shattered outlaw; and Margaret (delicate newcomer Faith Delaney), newly orphaned daughter of Little John, who attaches herself to him with vulnerable need. What ensues is a quiet, pained series of conciliatory encounters between these variously damaged individuals, each chasing some manner of healing and redemption \u2014 and in Robin\u2019s case, a last-ditch narrowing of the chasm between the man he is and the man others believe him to be.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s an ambitiously internal narrative arc, traced more through conversation and observation than overt incident, and Sarnoski\u2019s script is loath to force undue tension between its characters, while Robin and Brigid\u2019s bond is left nobly platonic. But it\u2019s only an intermittently compelling tale, given the consistent tenor of Robin\u2019s jaded self-loathing and the portentous inevitability of his fate. The dissonance between the human husk presented here and the dashing, green-clad adventurer of old is striking, but despite the haunted solemnity of Jackman\u2019s performance, the character remains slender and unknowable \u2014 and our interest in the rightness or otherwise of his death is more theoretical than deeply felt.<\/p>\n

\n\tStill, after his proficient but compromised-feeling \u201cQuiet Place\u201d prequel, where you could sense the friction between the director\u2019s humanity and the grind of genre machinery, Sarnoski\u2019s latest is an altogether more confident statement of intent, interests and identity, from the richly overcast 35mm textures of Pat Scola\u2019s cinematography to the sometimes lilting formality of the dialogue. \u201cThe Death of Robin Hood\u201d holds our attention for the sheer severity of its reinvention, the rooted, hessian-rough vividness of its ruined world, and its earnest, complex preoccupation with matters of the soul \u2014 a vanishingly rare virtue in the multiplex in general, let alone in the realm of endlessly repurposed IP. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are no merry men to be found in \u201cThe Death of Robin Hood,\u201d an elegiac portrait of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":860834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[28],"tags":[171,12165,477,351144,53,351145,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-860833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-hugh-jackman","tag-jodie-comer","tag-michael-sarnoski","tag-movies","tag-the-death-of-robin-hood","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116733845715333399","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=860833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}