Each few years, somebody decides it’s time to place a brand new spin on Robin Hood. Whether or not it was Ridley Scott’s surprisingly mundane 2010 epic or the flashy, forgettable 2018 model starring Taron Egerton and Jamie Foxx, filmmakers proceed returning to the legendary outlaw in quest of a contemporary angle. Author-director Michael Sarnoski’s “The Dying of Robin Hood” actually has one. Quite than retell the acquainted story of the heroic thief who stole from the wealthy and gave to the poor, Sarnoski strips away the mythology altogether, asking what stays when the legend fades and the person is pressured to confront the fact of who he was.
This isn’t the swashbuckling Robin Hood many audiences will likely be anticipating. There may be little journey, even much less triumph, and virtually no pleasure to be discovered on this grim, contemplative reimagining. Very like “The Inexperienced Knight” or “The Northman,” Sarnoski grounds the folklore in mud, blood, and mortality, remodeling an iconic hero into one thing way more difficult and, at occasions, far much less admirable.
Hugh Jackman leans totally into that strategy. Bringing the identical brooding depth that has outlined lots of his most critical performances, Jackman performs Robin as a person haunted by the load of his personal status. He understands the mythology that surrounds him, however the movie is much extra within the injury left behind by that mythology than the accomplishments that created it. What if Robin Hood wasn’t the noble hero historical past remembers, however a violent man whose legend has obscured the path of struggling he left in his wake? It’s a compelling query, and one that offers the movie its strongest moments.
Sadly, Sarnoski’s execution hardly ever matches the power of his concepts. The movie strikes at a deliberate tempo that usually borders on torpid, lingering on lengthy stretches of introspection with out offering sufficient emotional momentum to maintain them. Whereas the story finally arrives at a transferring vacation spot, the journey there often feels extra laborious than rewarding.
After a brutal confrontation leaves Robin in search of refuge at an remoted priory overseen by the compassionate Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer), the movie settles right into a meditation on guilt, redemption, and legacy. Robin begins caring for Margaret (Religion Delaney), the daughter of his longtime companion Little John, performed by Invoice Skarsgård in a efficiency that exchanges the character’s conventional attraction for one thing way more risky. On the similar time, the arrival of a wounded younger boy (Noah Jupe), scarred by a earlier encounter with Robin and Little John, forces Robin to confront the implications of his previous actions.
These story threads provide fertile floor for analyzing how myths are created and sustained, significantly when these myths are constructed on selective reminiscence. In some ways, “The Dying of Robin Hood” feels much less concerned with Robin himself than within the tales folks select to imagine about him. The movie repeatedly asks whether or not legends reveal fact or just bury it beneath generations of romanticized storytelling.
That thematic ambition is what makes the movie so irritating. Sarnoski is clearly reaching for one thing bigger than a typical Robin Hood story, utilizing the character as a automobile to discover how simply narratives turn out to be accepted as truth. In an period the place notion usually carries extra weight than actuality, there’s a fascinating fashionable relevance buried throughout the movie’s exploration of mythmaking and historic reminiscence.
But the screenplay by no means totally develops these concepts past their preliminary promise. Again and again, the movie introduces compelling ideas solely to depart them underexplored. Even stylistic thrives, together with a late shift in facet ratio, really feel extra self-conscious than significant. Quite than deepening the movie’s emotional impression, they draw consideration to themselves and reinforce the sense that the film is extra invested in its symbolism than its storytelling.
To Sarnoski’s credit score, “The Dying of Robin Hood” stays visually hanging all through.
Cinematographer Pat Scola captures the Northern Eire countryside with a rugged magnificence that completely enhances the movie’s mournful tone, whereas Jim Ghedi’s somber rating quietly underscores the melancholy hanging over practically each scene. The environment is wealthy, immersive, and undeniably efficient.
What finally holds the movie again is that environment alone can’t carry a narrative this introspective. For all its ambition, “The Dying of Robin Hood” spends a lot time deconstructing the legend that it often forgets to present audiences a compelling motive to put money into the person beneath it. By the point the movie arrives on the emotional reckoning promised by its title, it has lastly found the depth and readability it has been trying to find all alongside. The vacation spot is worth it. The street getting there, nevertheless, is significantly much less rewarding.
THE DEATH OF ROBIN HOOD is now enjoying in theaters.