Robin Hood Review: 2 Ups & 7 Downs

Downs...

7. It Tries Way Too Hard To Be "Modern"

From almost the very first moment of this film, it's hilariously over-eager to fashion itself as a "hip", contemporary re-imagining of the Robin Hood myth, with grating voiceover narration literally telling the viewer, "Forget what you've seen of this character before."

The 115-minute movie that follows is a disastrous hodgepodge of things a studio executive somewhere thinks the kids want to see these days.

There's the ridiculous anachronistic clothing worn by, well, everyone - Marian (Eve Hewson) even wears a distractingly out-of-time leather jacket at one point - not to mention the at-times borderline steampunk aesthetic, and an historical context desperately reaching for relevance to the current political climate.

As for Robin Hood himself, he basically gets the now-typical Batman Begins treatment, attempting to make the character a sexy sneak, but almost 15 years (!) removed from Christopher Nolan's movie, it's hard to look past the aggressive cynicism of it all.