The critics have a lot to say about Robin Hood (2018) - and little of it is good. Here are the most brutal reviews of the new movie.
Robin Hood (2018) has received some truly brutal reviews: here are the very worst. The story of Robin Hood is one well know that's been retold in many forms over the years, including plenty of movies: an animated Disney movie as well as the 1991 Prince of Thieves starring Kevin Costner being two highlights.
In 2018, Robin Hood has found its way back to the big screen once again, with Taron Egerton taking the lead in a modern-period hybrid retelling, directed by Otto Bathurst. Despite a strong cast and some bold creative choices, the latest Robin Hood movie has been met with overwhelmingly neagative reviews (although some felt it was saved thanks to Egerton's charm as Robin of Loxley).
As it stands, Robin Hood is a critical failure, and its box office predictions aren't exactly great, either. Below, we've rounded up some of the most brutal Robin Hood reviews.
"[But] objectifying the only woman in the cast with a speaking role isn’t the only crime Robin Hood commits. Rife with stereotypes, a terrible script, and odd “300”-esque cinematography that just doesn’t fit, this is not only a film nobody asked for, but also one that nobody should be forced to endure.
Reboots and remakes are meant to introduce a new audience to a classic tale with fresh ideas and storylines that make the story relevant to modern audiences. Robin Hood doesn’t even try. Instead, first-time feature writers Ben Chandler and David James Kelly deliver a woefully uninspired script, with words like “If not you, then who? If not now, then when?”
"Egerton’s Robin, or “Rob” as he is infuriatingly referred to throughout the film, fluctuates between sullen and smug, usually with little indication of why he's indulging in either mood. The only thing less convincing than his Robin of Locksley, the commoner’s nobleman, is Rob the soldier, or perhaps Robin Hood the heroic leader of men. It’s tough to choose, as they’re all equally charmless.
A good outlaw movie should have something to say about the world in which it's made--and holy moley, do we need one of those right now--but Robin Hood is not a good outlaw movie. Or a good Robin Hood movie. Or a good movie at all."
"The cast is uniformly terrible. Jamie Dornan (Fifty Shades of Grey) plays Marian’s new beau about as well as he played Christian Grey. Egerton, terrific in the Kingsman series, is bland here.
Most upsetting, the film features two Best Actor Oscar winners: Foxx (Ray), who growls and snarls, and F. Murray Abraham (Amadeus) as a throwaway Catholic cardinal. A true Robin Hood would steal these actors from this movie and give them to worthier projects.
This isn’t the first time somebody has tried to probe the dark recesses of this should-be charming action story. The 2010 film with Russell Crowe did it too, but at least that movie tried to approximate the time period. In director Otto Bathurst’s new “Hood,” Nottingham looks like a Roman fortress where everybody shops at Zara."
“Robin Hood is ridiculous from the moment it begins, though the charisma of its cast and the absurdity of its action are enough to sustain interest for a while. The first thing you have to realize about this new riff on an age-old hero is that he’s basically just Batman, minus any of the compelling backstory; par for the course in a movie where everything could be described as “basically just Batman, minus any of the compelling backstory.”
When Robin’s unit leaves Gotham and gets ambushed by archers in the desert, Bathurst shoots the action like it’s an incoherent deleted scene from “American Sniper.” Arrows tear through the sand like bullets as the English fighters scramble for cover in a shaky-cam massacre, the Iraq War parallels so obvious that you half expect Robin to complain that he was sent into battle without an exit strategy; to that end, perhaps it’s appropriate that the special effects look like they’re from 2003."
"It’s perhaps admirable that Bathurst has gone for a stylistic vision that sidesteps as many of the traditional clichés as possible, but there’s something jarring and awkward about Taron Egerton’s Robin scowling his way through proceedings like the street tough he played in Kingsman: the Secret Service, a kind of Robin Hoody. Also, the psychotherapy back story suggesting the Sheriff’s evildoing can be traced back to the sexual abuse he suffered as a child doesn’t serve any real purpose.
Accents-wise, it’s all over the place. Egerton must be the only medieval aristocrat who talks like a cockney geezer, Foxx’s John would have you believe the Moors started out in Texas, and quite how Hewson’s and Dornan’s Irish brogues found their way to Nottingham is just plain baffling."
"Guy Ritchie's idiotic, leathered-up, fancy-weaponed take on King Arthur worked out so wonderfully for all involved last year ($149 million worldwide box office on a $175 million budget) that someone still evidently thought it would be a good idea to apply the same preposterous modernized armaments, trendy wardrobe and machine-gun style to perennial screen favorite Robin Hood.
Well, it's turned out even worse than anyone could have imagined in this all-time big-screen low for Robin, Marian, Friar Tuck, Guy of Gisbourne and the Sheriff of Nottingham, not to mention for Jamie Foxx as an angry man from the Middle East who's gotten mixed up on the wrong side of a Crusade, or maybe just in the wrong movie."
"This bloated, featureless, CGI-heavy movie is not so much stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, as stealing from Guy Ritchie, Batman, Two-Face and a few others – and not giving back all that much to the audience. There are one or two revisionist ideas here: chiefly, suggesting that villainy could be connected with child abuse. That thought is however raised merely as the pretext for a lurid and gloating threat of violence: another moment of misjudgment among many."
It's hard to pinpoint exactly where Robin Hood has gone so wrong, because the criticisms are wide-ranging, but the Batman rip-off claims are, perhaps, the most interesting. Of course, bad reviews don't necessarily mean this is a movie to avoid. Sometimes watching a bad movie can be a thoroughly enjoyable experience, and you might just end up enjoying it. For a positive assessment of Robin Hood, look no further than Screen Rant's own review:
"In addition to tapping into the modern unrest between the classes in society, Robin Hood also brings the folk character’s inspiration of comic book superheroes full circle by delivering a compelling vigilante origin story. Given the popularity of superheroes in Hollywood over the last decade, moviegoers have seen a great deal of origin stories play out, and Robin Hood follows that formula to the letter. That means Robin Hood has a training montage, Egerton gets the requisite shirtless hero scene, and the movie plays up his dual identities. Of course, while Robin Hood is one of the oldest vigilante stories, the fact that Bathurst’s movie clearly takes inspiration from modern superhero films may not work for all fans of the outlaw archer. But, for those who have wanted Marvel Studios to release a Hawkeye movie (or DC to do a Green Arrow movie), Bathurst’s Robin Hood provides realistic archery action that puts what we’ve seen from “superhero” archers to shame."
