‘The Death of Robin Hood’ review: Hugh Jackman ain’t merry

Over eons of mythmaking, the 13th century bandit Robin Hood has evolved from a scamp adored by King Henry VIII to a symbol of sticking it to the rich. He’s been called a thief, a benefactor, a commoner, a lord, a killer and a hero. During the Great Depression, Robin was a dashing champion of the people. At the height of the Red Scare, he was a Communist threat; then, in the ‘70s, a sexy cartoon fox. But never until Michael Sarnoski’s “The Death of Robin Hood,” which imagines the folk legend as a benumbed mass murderer, has this outlaw been duller than the rock piles he builds to bury his corpses.

Hugh Jackman plays Robin Hood in his final days, a loose retelling of a 500-year-old ballad, and seems to have ancient dirt creased into his wrinkles. Injuries and exhaustion have him aching to retire. Yet the family members of his casualties won’t let him quit. Out of duty to their bloodlines, these vengeful mourners — even the grandchildren of his victims — continue attempting to assassinate him even though he doesn’t remember, or care about, their beloved dead. Robin is enduring a nightmare version of a party at which every unfamiliar face huffily claims they’ve met you before. It’s relatable, except for the throat-slitting.

This savage, amoral and unfeeling Robin Hood has been written to invert everything modern fans like about him. He doesn’t wear green. He doesn’t sport a feather. He’s never loved a Maid Marian. He doesn’t even romp around a forest with a pack of merry men. Instead, he starts the film on a barren mountaintop, alone. (Similarly, Jim Ghedi’s transporting score has the sound of traditional ballads like “Silver Dagger” splintering apart mid-verse to reassemble as funeral hymns.)

From his gray hair to limping stride, Jackson’s Robin is so battered by decades of violence and outdoor camping that, at first glance, I thought his bare feet were a pair of alligator boots. Filmed in Northern Ireland, the landscapes are cold, green and formidable (if muted by too much mist). The first shot has a miserable grandeur: a frigid landscape, frozen berries and wind so strong it nearly blows a starving traveler sideways. Shortly after, cinematographer Pat Scola’s overhead view of a makeshift cemetery is a stunner.

Sarnoski has D.W. Griffith’s flair for visceral imagery. His favorite trick is to have us empathize with a close-up of a desperate, vulnerable character and then have Robin brutally mow them down. There’s even a scene of Robin crushing a bunny. You can hear the crunch.

“I robbed and killed for the joy of it, nothing more,” Robin grunts to strangers who hail him as the protector of the meek. Over the course of the running time, he’ll reconnect with Little John (Bill Skarsgård) and befriend a leper (Murray Bartlett), a traumatized young man (Noah Jupe), an angry little girl (Faith Delaney) and a kindly nun-slash-nurse (Jodie Comer) who is so blindingly clean that it’s distracting. He also visits a religious commune and witnesses actual generosity only to remain apathetic about repentance or emotional growth.

It’s a tedious spin on a Wolverine movie Jackman has already made, 2017’s “Logan,” in which his mythic anti-heroic X-Man fosters a ferocious moppet en route to the grave. Lately, I’ve come to prefer Jackman as a showman over a savage. (Many stars can scowl, few can tap dance.) But he looks the part — Jackman has a commendable willingness to recede inside himself — even though after the rousing opening, the script gives him almost nothing to do.

The screenplay’s dirge-like momentum is ironic as Sarnoski has set out to make a movie itself about storytelling. You can tell because of the multiple monologues that kick off with someone asking Robin if he’s ever heard that story about so-and-so and forcing the movie to halt while we listen.

From Robin’s experience, he thinks that “stories can make men do terrible things,” perhaps thinking of all those bereaved family members who were honor-bound to chase after him and get themselves killed. Violence metastasizes. In the medieval era, blood feuds carried on for generations; likewise, today’s wars are often rooted in centuries of pain. Robin doesn’t tell tall tales himself except once and when he does, you can understand why, but not why one listener in particular goes along with it.

But he does have an opinion on how to spin a good yarn. When Little John struggles to describe his dream girl, Robin instructs his protegee to sketch an image with words.

“She had red hair like —” Robin prompts in the manner of a stern third-grade teacher.

“Fresh blood!” Little John blurts.

A hyperactive psychopath, Skarsgård’s Little John is one of the movie’s rare treats. The other is the agonizingly good stunt coordination by Julian Spencer that makes men slide in the mud frantically trying to grab and snap each other’s fingers.

“The Death of Robin Hood’s” one big idea is compelling: History gets written and erased in real time. Characters rarely agree on what happened to whom and frankly, I’m still unsure if one of the father-daughter relationships in here is biological or just pretend. (The cast’s mush-mouthed accents don’t help.) Even today, a time where the slipperiness of facts is a known risk, sticky fables endure — pizza-parlor cabals, dog-eating immigrants, gerbils stuck wherever.

We still hail Robin Hood as an inspirational hero who stole from the rich to give to the poor, forgoing alternate versions in which Robin robs a monk, keeps the money, then kills a dozen men to cover up the crime. But during a week when the canted economy just created its first trillionaire, I can’t fathom why Sarnoski felt we needed this version of Robin Hood now. Disillusionment aside, what’s the point of a Robin Hood who insists on standing for nothing?

Sarnoski is a promising talent with two previous features on his resume: “Pig,” a feral $3-million thriller starring Nicolas Cage, and “A Quiet Place: Day One,” a smart franchise prequel. It’s understandable he wanted to split the difference and make a midsize indie that feels all his, to prove himself with the kind of solemn period picture that people take seriously. He’s earned the right to ask financiers and his building fan base for their trust.

But “The Death of Robin Hood” feels like a director thinking only of his ambitions and not whether he’s making a movie anyone wants to bother to see. The lesson is right there in the film: Audiences decide what gets remembered.

Over eons of mythmaking, the 13th century bandit Robin Hood has evolved from a scamp adored by King Henry VIII to a symbol of sticking it to the rich. He’s been called a thief, a benefactor, a commoner, a lord, a killer and a hero. During the Great Depression, Robin was a dashing champion of the people. At the height of the Red Scare, he was a Communist threat; then, in the ‘70s, a sexy cartoon fox. But never until Michael Sarnoski’s “The Death of Robin Hood,” which imagines the folk legend as a benumbed mass murderer, has this outlaw been duller than the rock piles he builds to bury his corpses.

Hugh Jackman plays Robin Hood in his final days, a loose retelling of a 500-year-old ballad, and seems to have ancient dirt creased into his wrinkles. Injuries and exhaustion have him aching to retire. Yet the family members of his casualties won’t let him quit. Out of duty to their bloodlines, these vengeful mourners — even the grandchildren of his victims — continue attempting to assassinate him even though he doesn’t remember, or care about, their beloved dead. Robin is enduring a nightmare version of a party at which every unfamiliar face huffily claims they’ve met you before. It’s relatable, except for the throat-slitting.

This savage, amoral and unfeeling Robin Hood has been written to invert everything modern fans like about him. He doesn’t wear green. He doesn’t sport a feather. He’s never loved a Maid Marian. He doesn’t even romp around a forest with a pack of merry men. Instead, he starts the film on a barren mountaintop, alone. (Similarly, Jim Ghedi’s transporting score has the sound of traditional ballads like “Silver Dagger” splintering apart mid-verse to reassemble as funeral hymns.)

From his gray hair to limping stride, Jackson’s Robin is so battered by decades of violence and outdoor camping that, at first glance, I thought his bare feet were a pair of alligator boots. Filmed in Northern Ireland, the landscapes are cold, green and formidable (if muted by too much mist). The first shot has a miserable grandeur: a frigid landscape, frozen berries and wind so strong it nearly blows a starving traveler sideways. Shortly after, cinematographer Pat Scola’s overhead view of a makeshift cemetery is a stunner.

Sarnoski has D.W. Griffith’s flair for visceral imagery. His favorite trick is to have us empathize with a close-up of a desperate, vulnerable character and then have Robin brutally mow them down. There’s even a scene of Robin crushing a bunny. You can hear the crunch.

“I robbed and killed for the joy of it, nothing more,” Robin grunts to strangers who hail him as the protector of the meek. Over the course of the running time, he’ll reconnect with Little John (Bill Skarsgård) and befriend a leper (Murray Bartlett), a traumatized young man (Noah Jupe), an angry little girl (Faith Delaney) and a kindly nun-slash-nurse (Jodie Comer) who is so blindingly clean that it’s distracting. He also visits a religious commune and witnesses actual generosity only to remain apathetic about repentance or emotional growth.

It’s a tedious spin on a Wolverine movie Jackman has already made, 2017’s “Logan,” in which his mythic anti-heroic X-Man fosters a ferocious moppet en route to the grave. Lately, I’ve come to prefer Jackman as a showman over a savage. (Many stars can scowl, few can tap dance.) But he looks the part — Jackman has a commendable willingness to recede inside himself — even though after the rousing opening, the script gives him almost nothing to do.

The screenplay’s dirge-like momentum is ironic as Sarnoski has set out to make a movie itself about storytelling. You can tell because of the multiple monologues that kick off with someone asking Robin if he’s ever heard that story about so-and-so and forcing the movie to halt while we listen.

From Robin’s experience, he thinks that “stories can make men do terrible things,” perhaps thinking of all those bereaved family members who were honor-bound to chase after him and get themselves killed. Violence metastasizes. In the medieval era, blood feuds carried on for generations; likewise, today’s wars are often rooted in centuries of pain. Robin doesn’t tell tall tales himself except once and when he does, you can understand why, but not why one listener in particular goes along with it.

But he does have an opinion on how to spin a good yarn. When Little John struggles to describe his dream girl, Robin instructs his protegee to sketch an image with words.

“She had red hair like —” Robin prompts in the manner of a stern third-grade teacher.

“Fresh blood!” Little John blurts.

A hyperactive psychopath, Skarsgård’s Little John is one of the movie’s rare treats. The other is the agonizingly good stunt coordination by Julian Spencer that makes men slide in the mud frantically trying to grab and snap each other’s fingers.

“The Death of Robin Hood’s” one big idea is compelling: History gets written and erased in real time. Characters rarely agree on what happened to whom and frankly, I’m still unsure if one of the father-daughter relationships in here is biological or just pretend. (The cast’s mush-mouthed accents don’t help.) Even today, a time where the slipperiness of facts is a known risk, sticky fables endure — pizza-parlor cabals, dog-eating immigrants, gerbils stuck wherever.

We still hail Robin Hood as an inspirational hero who stole from the rich to give to the poor, forgoing alternate versions in which Robin robs a monk, keeps the money, then kills a dozen men to cover up the crime. But during a week when the canted economy just created its first trillionaire, I can’t fathom why Sarnoski felt we needed this version of Robin Hood now. Disillusionment aside, what’s the point of a Robin Hood who insists on standing for nothing?

Sarnoski is a promising talent with two previous features on his resume: “Pig,” a feral $3-million thriller starring Nicolas Cage, and “A Quiet Place: Day One,” a smart franchise prequel. It’s understandable he wanted to split the difference and make a midsize indie that feels all his, to prove himself with the kind of solemn period picture that people take seriously. He’s earned the right to ask financiers and his building fan base for their trust.

But “The Death of Robin Hood” feels like a director thinking only of his ambitions and not whether he’s making a movie anyone wants to bother to see. The lesson is right there in the film: Audiences decide what gets remembered.

Over eons of mythmaking, the 13th century bandit Robin Hood has evolved from a scamp adored by King Henry VIII to a symbol of sticking it to the rich. He’s been called a thief, a benefactor, a commoner, a lord, a killer and a hero. During the Great Depression, Robin was a dashing champion of the people. At the height of the Red Scare, he was a Communist threat; then, in the ‘70s, a sexy cartoon fox. But never until Michael Sarnoski’s “The Death of Robin Hood,” which imagines the folk legend as a benumbed mass murderer, has this outlaw been duller than the rock piles he builds to bury his corpses.

Hugh Jackman plays Robin Hood in his final days, a loose retelling of a 500-year-old ballad, and seems to have ancient dirt creased into his wrinkles. Injuries and exhaustion have him aching to retire. Yet the family members of his casualties won’t let him quit. Out of duty to their bloodlines, these vengeful mourners — even the grandchildren of his victims — continue attempting to assassinate him even though he doesn’t remember, or care about, their beloved dead. Robin is enduring a nightmare version of a party at which every unfamiliar face huffily claims they’ve met you before. It’s relatable, except for the throat-slitting.

This savage, amoral and unfeeling Robin Hood has been written to invert everything modern fans like about him. He doesn’t wear green. He doesn’t sport a feather. He’s never loved a Maid Marian. He doesn’t even romp around a forest with a pack of merry men. Instead, he starts the film on a barren mountaintop, alone. (Similarly, Jim Ghedi’s transporting score has the sound of traditional ballads like “Silver Dagger” splintering apart mid-verse to reassemble as funeral hymns.)

From his gray hair to limping stride, Jackson’s Robin is so battered by decades of violence and outdoor camping that, at first glance, I thought his bare feet were a pair of alligator boots. Filmed in Northern Ireland, the landscapes are cold, green and formidable (if muted by too much mist). The first shot has a miserable grandeur: a frigid landscape, frozen berries and wind so strong it nearly blows a starving traveler sideways. Shortly after, cinematographer Pat Scola’s overhead view of a makeshift cemetery is a stunner.

Sarnoski has D.W. Griffith’s flair for visceral imagery. His favorite trick is to have us empathize with a close-up of a desperate, vulnerable character and then have Robin brutally mow them down. There’s even a scene of Robin crushing a bunny. You can hear the crunch.

“I robbed and killed for the joy of it, nothing more,” Robin grunts to strangers who hail him as the protector of the meek. Over the course of the running time, he’ll reconnect with Little John (Bill Skarsgård) and befriend a leper (Murray Bartlett), a traumatized young man (Noah Jupe), an angry little girl (Faith Delaney) and a kindly nun-slash-nurse (Jodie Comer) who is so blindingly clean that it’s distracting. He also visits a religious commune and witnesses actual generosity only to remain apathetic about repentance or emotional growth.

It’s a tedious spin on a Wolverine movie Jackman has already made, 2017’s “Logan,” in which his mythic anti-heroic X-Man fosters a ferocious moppet en route to the grave. Lately, I’ve come to prefer Jackman as a showman over a savage. (Many stars can scowl, few can tap dance.) But he looks the part — Jackman has a commendable willingness to recede inside himself — even though after the rousing opening, the script gives him almost nothing to do.

The screenplay’s dirge-like momentum is ironic as Sarnoski has set out to make a movie itself about storytelling. You can tell because of the multiple monologues that kick off with someone asking Robin if he’s ever heard that story about so-and-so and forcing the movie to halt while we listen.

From Robin’s experience, he thinks that “stories can make men do terrible things,” perhaps thinking of all those bereaved family members who were honor-bound to chase after him and get themselves killed. Violence metastasizes. In the medieval era, blood feuds carried on for generations; likewise, today’s wars are often rooted in centuries of pain. Robin doesn’t tell tall tales himself except once and when he does, you can understand why, but not why one listener in particular goes along with it.

But he does have an opinion on how to spin a good yarn. When Little John struggles to describe his dream girl, Robin instructs his protegee to sketch an image with words.

“She had red hair like —” Robin prompts in the manner of a stern third-grade teacher.

“Fresh blood!” Little John blurts.

A hyperactive psychopath, Skarsgård’s Little John is one of the movie’s rare treats. The other is the agonizingly good stunt coordination by Julian Spencer that makes men slide in the mud frantically trying to grab and snap each other’s fingers.

“The Death of Robin Hood’s” one big idea is compelling: History gets written and erased in real time. Characters rarely agree on what happened to whom and frankly, I’m still unsure if one of the father-daughter relationships in here is biological or just pretend. (The cast’s mush-mouthed accents don’t help.) Even today, a time where the slipperiness of facts is a known risk, sticky fables endure — pizza-parlor cabals, dog-eating immigrants, gerbils stuck wherever.

We still hail Robin Hood as an inspirational hero who stole from the rich to give to the poor, forgoing alternate versions in which Robin robs a monk, keeps the money, then kills a dozen men to cover up the crime. But during a week when the canted economy just created its first trillionaire, I can’t fathom why Sarnoski felt we needed this version of Robin Hood now. Disillusionment aside, what’s the point of a Robin Hood who insists on standing for nothing?

Sarnoski is a promising talent with two previous features on his resume: “Pig,” a feral $3-million thriller starring Nicolas Cage, and “A Quiet Place: Day One,” a smart franchise prequel. It’s understandable he wanted to split the difference and make a midsize indie that feels all his, to prove himself with the kind of solemn period picture that people take seriously. He’s earned the right to ask financiers and his building fan base for their trust.

But “The Death of Robin Hood” feels like a director thinking only of his ambitions and not whether he’s making a movie anyone wants to bother to see. The lesson is right there in the film: Audiences decide what gets remembered.

Over eons of mythmaking, the 13th century bandit Robin Hood has evolved from a scamp adored by King Henry VIII to a symbol of sticking it to the rich. He’s been called a thief, a benefactor, a commoner, a lord, a killer and a hero. During the Great Depression, Robin was a dashing champion of the people. At the height of the Red Scare, he was a Communist threat; then, in the ‘70s, a sexy cartoon fox. But never until Michael Sarnoski’s “The Death of Robin Hood,” which imagines the folk legend as a benumbed mass murderer, has this outlaw been duller than the rock piles he builds to bury his corpses.

Hugh Jackman plays Robin Hood in his final days, a loose retelling of a 500-year-old ballad, and seems to have ancient dirt creased into his wrinkles. Injuries and exhaustion have him aching to retire. Yet the family members of his casualties won’t let him quit. Out of duty to their bloodlines, these vengeful mourners — even the grandchildren of his victims — continue attempting to assassinate him even though he doesn’t remember, or care about, their beloved dead. Robin is enduring a nightmare version of a party at which every unfamiliar face huffily claims they’ve met you before. It’s relatable, except for the throat-slitting.

This savage, amoral and unfeeling Robin Hood has been written to invert everything modern fans like about him. He doesn’t wear green. He doesn’t sport a feather. He’s never loved a Maid Marian. He doesn’t even romp around a forest with a pack of merry men. Instead, he starts the film on a barren mountaintop, alone. (Similarly, Jim Ghedi’s transporting score has the sound of traditional ballads like “Silver Dagger” splintering apart mid-verse to reassemble as funeral hymns.)

From his gray hair to limping stride, Jackson’s Robin is so battered by decades of violence and outdoor camping that, at first glance, I thought his bare feet were a pair of alligator boots. Filmed in Northern Ireland, the landscapes are cold, green and formidable (if muted by too much mist). The first shot has a miserable grandeur: a frigid landscape, frozen berries and wind so strong it nearly blows a starving traveler sideways. Shortly after, cinematographer Pat Scola’s overhead view of a makeshift cemetery is a stunner.

Sarnoski has D.W. Griffith’s flair for visceral imagery. His favorite trick is to have us empathize with a close-up of a desperate, vulnerable character and then have Robin brutally mow them down. There’s even a scene of Robin crushing a bunny. You can hear the crunch.

“I robbed and killed for the joy of it, nothing more,” Robin grunts to strangers who hail him as the protector of the meek. Over the course of the running time, he’ll reconnect with Little John (Bill Skarsgård) and befriend a leper (Murray Bartlett), a traumatized young man (Noah Jupe), an angry little girl (Faith Delaney) and a kindly nun-slash-nurse (Jodie Comer) who is so blindingly clean that it’s distracting. He also visits a religious commune and witnesses actual generosity only to remain apathetic about repentance or emotional growth.

It’s a tedious spin on a Wolverine movie Jackman has already made, 2017’s “Logan,” in which his mythic anti-heroic X-Man fosters a ferocious moppet en route to the grave. Lately, I’ve come to prefer Jackman as a showman over a savage. (Many stars can scowl, few can tap dance.) But he looks the part — Jackman has a commendable willingness to recede inside himself — even though after the rousing opening, the script gives him almost nothing to do.

The screenplay’s dirge-like momentum is ironic as Sarnoski has set out to make a movie itself about storytelling. You can tell because of the multiple monologues that kick off with someone asking Robin if he’s ever heard that story about so-and-so and forcing the movie to halt while we listen.

From Robin’s experience, he thinks that “stories can make men do terrible things,” perhaps thinking of all those bereaved family members who were honor-bound to chase after him and get themselves killed. Violence metastasizes. In the medieval era, blood feuds carried on for generations; likewise, today’s wars are often rooted in centuries of pain. Robin doesn’t tell tall tales himself except once and when he does, you can understand why, but not why one listener in particular goes along with it.

But he does have an opinion on how to spin a good yarn. When Little John struggles to describe his dream girl, Robin instructs his protegee to sketch an image with words.

“She had red hair like —” Robin prompts in the manner of a stern third-grade teacher.

“Fresh blood!” Little John blurts.

A hyperactive psychopath, Skarsgård’s Little John is one of the movie’s rare treats. The other is the agonizingly good stunt coordination by Julian Spencer that makes men slide in the mud frantically trying to grab and snap each other’s fingers.

“The Death of Robin Hood’s” one big idea is compelling: History gets written and erased in real time. Characters rarely agree on what happened to whom and frankly, I’m still unsure if one of the father-daughter relationships in here is biological or just pretend. (The cast’s mush-mouthed accents don’t help.) Even today, a time where the slipperiness of facts is a known risk, sticky fables endure — pizza-parlor cabals, dog-eating immigrants, gerbils stuck wherever.

We still hail Robin Hood as an inspirational hero who stole from the rich to give to the poor, forgoing alternate versions in which Robin robs a monk, keeps the money, then kills a dozen men to cover up the crime. But during a week when the canted economy just created its first trillionaire, I can’t fathom why Sarnoski felt we needed this version of Robin Hood now. Disillusionment aside, what’s the point of a Robin Hood who insists on standing for nothing?

Sarnoski is a promising talent with two previous features on his resume: “Pig,” a feral $3-million thriller starring Nicolas Cage, and “A Quiet Place: Day One,” a smart franchise prequel. It’s understandable he wanted to split the difference and make a midsize indie that feels all his, to prove himself with the kind of solemn period picture that people take seriously. He’s earned the right to ask financiers and his building fan base for their trust.

But “The Death of Robin Hood” feels like a director thinking only of his ambitions and not whether he’s making a movie anyone wants to bother to see. The lesson is right there in the film: Audiences decide what gets remembered.