What if you took a popular comic book character or character—someone you love enough to be the star of, say, a Disney cartoon—and made a movie that puts them in the dark, even the light of war? Call it a “bad and bad story” or maybe an “untold true story”; it’s the kind of re-imagining that has brought several storybook characters to the screen, such as Peter Pan and Hansel and Gretel. The saga of Robin Hood, the British outlaw, is very famous, and has been told many times at this point. He’s been a raconteur from Hollywood’s Golden Age, as well as a great animated fox. But recently, cinema has tried to cast a shadow over the man, not one of those more sinister pictures than that of director Michael Sarnoski. The Death of Robin Hood.
The new version stars Hugh Jackman, who is no stranger to challenging an established protagonist. He most famously played the X-Men character Wolverine as a fading but bloodthirsty old cowboy. Loganacclaimed comic book adaptation. The Death of Robin Hood based on an English ballad The Death of Robin Hood, A middle English poem that tells of the last days of a gangster. But while the original story is romantic and tragic, Sarnoski’s take is much more intense—so much so that I was struck by the brutal, blunt violence of his first act. This is not a film that strives to make Robin Hood a tougher man. First it introduces him as morally evil, almost evil, then it challenges the audience to accept that such a being can be worthy of any redemption.
So far in his young career, Sarnoski has found himself drawn to understated narratives. His first feature was the best A pigin which he cast Nicolas Cage as a grumpy, beaten thief who retreats back into the creepy Portland food scene he once escaped (trust me, it makes sense in context). His biggest budget pursuit was A Quiet Place: Day Onean introduction to the silent horror film A Quiet Place; I found it surprisingly sensitive, beautifully setting the story of one woman’s death against the end of the world. Yet somehow, The Death of Robin Hood makes Sarnoski’s early work seem like a joyous walk in the park.
The film begins by introducing Robin Hood: a bastard with a bow, who lives on a mountain in England, dressed in animal fur; he sports shaggy fur and a bushy beard that makes him indistinguishable from a polar bear. Then a young man tries to summon him, wanting to avenge the family member Robin killed long ago. At first, the plot seems to follow the “impossible father” arc that most true reboots do – after all, even. Logan it’s about a lucky little girl breaking an old X-Man out of his shell for one last mission.
That sweet father-daughter character is missing The Death of Robin Hoodthough. Robin dispatches his enemy quickly and visually, before going up against a large group of enemies who are targeting his former thug lover Little John (played by Bill Skarsgård). No cooperation is revived, and no feeling of fraternity develops; what happens is motivated by mere survival and greed, the implication being that these were always Robin Hood’s motivations—any social distribution happened by chance. Sarnoski hits everything with great but palpable energy, never shying away from violence or making an effort to glorify it, and Jackman is similarly stoic in his performance. If it weren’t for the name and the bow and arrow, finding anything resembling Robin Hoods in Jackman’s interpretation would be difficult.
It’s as surprising as all the bad is the turn that happens in the middle of the movie. This is when the tragic melody of the film’s source material comes into play: Wounded and vulnerable, Robin retires to a healing community run by nuns, led by Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer); the action ends, it will not come back. The back half isn’t redemptive, exactly, but it’s certainly reflective, forcing the character to dwell on his mistakes as the end of his journey draws near. I was initially intrigued by this turn while watching, and I was hoping for a short fight to end the story, but that conclusion never comes; Sarnoski’s intention is more thoughtful.
Any major Hollywood studio would have insisted on a grand finale, but The Death of Robin Hoodproduced by A24, left me pondering the folly of my need for such a denouement. Instead, Sarnoski and Jackman take a title associated with superhero movies and strip away that element, asking the viewer to relate to the smallest of human stakes. The gambit is daring, but never interesting.
