Robin Hood review: 'This rip-roaring version is for the superhero era'

Dir: Otto Bathurst; Starring: Taron Egerton, Ben Mendelsohn, Jamie Dornan, Paul Anderson, Jamie Foxx, Eve Hewson. Cert 12A, 116 mins

There isn’t any obvious pressing need for yet another film about Robin Hood. From Errol Flynn in Hollywood’s golden age to Kevin Costner and Russell Crowe more recently, not to mention Richard Greene and Jason Connery on TV, Disney animated versions and Mel Brooks satires about men in tights, audiences have been very well served with tales from Sherwood Forest. However, this rip-roaring version, directed by Otto Bathurst (best known for his work on TV’s Peaky Blinders) is a Robin Hood for the superhero era. As reimagined here, Robin of Loxley seems partly like a medieval version of Bruce Wayne with a bow and arrow – and partly like a delinquent teen gang member in a hoodie.

The new film (produced by Leonardo DiCaprio) tells only a fraction of the full story. It is clearly intended as the first in a franchise. After a clumsy beginning, the story quickly builds up momentum. It has a likeably self-deprecating performance from Taron Egerton as Robin and a wonderfully sneering and malevolent one from Ben Mendelsohn as the Sheriff of Nottingham.

At first, Robin is just another “lord of the manor”, a carefree and spoilt jack-the lad, looking for romance and adventure. In most other versions, he takes a small eternity to meet and court Maid Marian. Here, he encounters her right at the start, when she tries to steal one of his horses. The moment he sees her face, he is instantly besotted. Marian (played by Eve Hewson, rock star Bono’s daughter) is earthier and more political and class conscious than the demure figure seen in the other movies. She and Robin enjoy an idyllic love affair – but then he is conscripted to go off and fight against the infidels. The years pass.

In his depiction of the crusades, director Bathurst deliberately reminds us of the misadventures of western armies in contemporary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The crusaders can’t cope with the guerilla-style tactics of the locals. The fight scenes are brutal. There are atrocities on both sides but the English are especially ruthless, torturing and killing prisoners. Robin is disgusted by his own side’s behaviour and not sure what cause he is fighting for. When he first encounters the ferocious Muslim noble Yahya/Little John (Jamie Foxx), the two nearly hack each to pieces. Of course, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Back in England, all is going to ruin. With Robin missing, presumed dead, the Sheriff has seized his property. A war tax bill allows him to fleece all the citizens while he lives in luxury. Mendelsohn dresses like a 14th century version of Joseph Goebbels. His long coat alone is enough to tell us he is not to be trusted. He has a vulpine quality. He delivers his lines with mellow sarcasm, viciousness and self-pity. (He was abused as a kid and has a longstanding grudge against the world.) He is just the villain that any self-respecting new Robin Hood movie needs. “You bastards, I am the Sheriff of Nottingham!” he yells with demented fury at one stage.

Aspects of the film are confusing. The love triangle between Robin, Marian and Will Scarlet (played by Jamie Dornan, fresh from Fifty Shades) stretches credibility. One moment she is telling Robin she will wait for him; the next she is happily together with Will. He is a fiery Red Clydeside union-leader type, always speaking up on behalf of the oppressed Nottingham tax payers. Some of lines in Ben Chandler and David James Kelly’s screenplay are strangely anachronistic. Robin is encouraged to “follow the money”, as if he is Woodward and Bernstein in pursuit of Richard Nixon.

Robin’s transformation from battle-scarred and traumatised veteran of the crusades into action hero takes place very quickly. Jamie Foxx gives him a few tutorials on how to “fight up close” using “street weapons” and, in no time at all, he is leaping from ramparts like a cross between Batman and a martial arts warrior from a Zhang Yimou film. His hood becomes his symbol. At the same time he is sabotaging the Sheriff’s affairs, he is busy buttering him up. He pays more money into the Sheriff’s coffers than anyone else, even if he promptly steals it back again, and he flatters the sheriff incessantly.

Egerton’s Robin is a relentlessly cheerful type who doesn’t let anything (the loss of his lands, his girlfriend taking up with another man) get him down for too long. He doesn’t bring much introspection or darkness to the role but he leaps hither and thither with unending enthusiasm. The bleakest moments here tend to involve Jamie Foxx’s character who endures bereavement and suffers torture – but he is too hardboiled ever to be cowed or to lose his knack for sardonic one-liners.

F Murray Abraham lends some gravitas as a very sinister Cardinal, even more powerful and ruthless than the Sheriff. The light relief comes from Tim Minchin as a strangely under-nourished seeming but always droll Friar Tuck.

Some of the elements from earlier Robin Hood movies are present and correct. Others are ignored or distorted. The filmmakers take a long time to cover not a great deal in plot terms. A large part of the film is devoted to en elaborate heist which plays like something from a Michael Mann movie, but with knives and axes instead of pistols and machine guns and get away horses and carts instead of cars. Robin spends hardly any time at all in Sherwood Forest. The tempo, though, never flags. This is such an energetic affair that it hardly seems to matter when its aim is less than true.