The Death of Robin Hood review

The Death of Robin Hood is a beautifully shot movie. The cinematography is gorgeous, Hugh Jackman gives a terrific performance, and the cast generally does excellent work with the material they’re given. My problem is the same problem I’ve had with a lot of movies lately: the script.

I’m honestly not sure why this movie was made.

The film presents Robin Hood as a weary, violent killer haunted by his past, then spends more than two hours waiting for someone to kill him. It’s basically Logan set in medieval England, minus the mutants and superhero mythology. Robin wanders through a world of brutality, guilt, and death while looking for some form of redemption, but I never found the journey particularly interesting.

What I found most frustrating is that this movie barely engages with the Robin Hood mythology at all. And when I say barely, I mean almost not at all. There is, without exaggeration, very little here that connects to the Robin Hood legend beyond the character names. If this had been released under a different title with different names, no one would have identified it as a Robin Hood story.

Robin Hood is one of the most enduring folk heroes in Western culture. Whether the legends are true, exaggerated, or completely fabricated, there are fascinating questions you could explore. This movie isn’t interested in any of that.

Instead, it gives us an ultraviolent opening sequence filled with gruesome acts of violence, then shifts into a slow meditation on guilt and mortality. I understand what Sarnoski was aiming for. People on social media have compared it to Logan, and in that same way it seems less interested in adventure than in an aging killer confronting his own death. But for me, the film never develops enough of a story, theme, or character arc to justify following that journey.

Jodie Comer is very good here as Sister Brigid, a character who seems to exist somewhere between an abbess, a nun, a mystic, and a witch. I never quite understood what the movie wanted her to be. Hugh Jackman is excellent, as always. Those two performances aren’t the issue. The problem is that the characters are trapped inside a story that never gives them much to do beyond discussing death, regret, and violence.

There is a young girl here who appears to function largely as an audience surrogate, witnessing horrifying acts while being powerless to stop them. In that sense, she reflects the audience’s experience of the film itself. We sit and watch violence unfold, unable to do anything about it.

What surprised me most was how little fun the movie is. That’s not necessarily a criticism by itself. Many great films are unpleasant experiences. But unlike something like Logan, which has compelling characters and a clear emotional destination, The Death of Robin Hood often felt aimless. I was bored more than disturbed.

If you’re someone who enjoys grim, brutal, ultraviolent medieval dramas where men spend much of the runtime tearing each other apart, there is definitely an audience for this. The first third of the film in particular delivers plenty of that. But if you’re looking for a Robin Hood movie, I don’t think this is one.

In fact, I suspect I would have liked the movie more if it had been completely disconnected from Robin Hood altogether. As a Robin Hood movie, I think it fails. As a standalone movie, it still needs a stronger story and a clearer point than it ultimately provides.

The acting is excellent. The cinematography is beautiful. But by the time the credits rolled, I felt like I had spent over two hours watching a man search for death without ever giving me a compelling reason to care whether he found it.

I hope someone makes another good Robin Hood movie soon. This isn’t it.