ROBIN HOOD
An outlaw unto itself…
Nottingham’s favourite son gets a youthful makeover in Otto Bathurst’s all-action re-telling, in which Taron Egerton becomes the screen’s umpteenth Robin of Loxley. The Brit actor brings some of his cheeky Kingsman charm to the role, but thankfully doesn’t go full Guy Ritchie.
Sent to the Crusades, Robin returns to find his love Marian (Eve Hewson) in the arms of “voice of the people” Will Tillman (Jamie Dornan), after she was told he’d perished. Teaming up with Jamie Foxx’s John – a rival soldier he fought against who now encourages him to take down the warmongering Sheriff of Nottingham (Ben Mendelsohn) – Loxley becomes ‘The Hood’, a fast-firing bandit who starts looting the local treasury.
Bathurst brings the same swagger he brought to Peaky Blinders, directing the action scenes as if his life depended on it. In front of the camera, Foxx is very watchable as the one-handed warrior while Tim Minchin is on fine form as Friar Tuck. As for Mendelsohn, he doesn’t thieve the film wholesale à la Alan Rickman, but has a ball with the dialogue (“Now I’m going to boil you in your own piss!”). True, the re-imagined ‘medieval’ Nottingham looks as silly as the costumes’ modern stitching. Mostly, though, it whizzes along like one of Loxley’s arrows. James Mottram
THE VERDICT
Egerton and co have a laugh, fire some arrows and disappear into the sunset. Forgettable, but fun.