Robin Hood

“Robin Hood plays into persistent European tropes that mischaracterize all Arabs as Moors and all Moors as Black.”

Title: Robin Hood (2018)
Director: Otto Bathurst 👨🏼🇬🇧
Writers: Screenplay by Ben Chandler 👨🏼🇦🇺 and David James Kelly 👨🏼🇺🇸

Reviewed by Andrew 👨🏻🇺🇸🌈

Note: This review was commissioned by Lionsgate. The content and methodology remain 100% independent and in line with Mediaversity's non-commissioned reviews.

—SPOILERS AHEAD—

Technical: 1/5

On paper, Robin Hood has a lot going for it. It boasts an accomplished director, Otto Bathurst, who won a BAFTA for his work on Peaky Blinders, and a big name cast that includes Taron Egerton (Robin “Rob” Hood), Jamie Foxx (Yahya/Little John), and Jamie Dornan (Will Scarlet/Tillman). Further, its source material is one of the most well known stories in history. Tales about the heroic outlaw who steals from the rich and gives to the poor date back to the 14th century and have provided fodder for films since the earliest days of cinema.

But instead of building upon these strengths, we’re immediately told to ignore all that and “forget about history.” It’s here that the problems begin. True to the narrator’s word, Robin Hood is wildly anachronistic even though it, like the original tales, takes place during the Third Crusade (1189-1192). The discrepancies are so jarring that they distract from the movie. Everything from the clothes to the hairstyles to the architecture flaunt a messy hodgepodge of styles and eras, reality and fantasy. Egerton sports the same haircut as he does in his 2019 issue of GQ, and wears an outfit suspiciously similar to that of the title character in television’s Arrow. A brightly lit casino night, at what looks like the Met Gala, is supposed to represent medieval Nottingham. While other movies such as Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) believably blur fantasy and historical fiction, Robin Hood fails badly.

Matters aren’t helped by a lackluster script. The lines feel out of place, as if the writers had repurposed a generic action war movie and just replaced the names with Robin Hood characters. Without a decent screenplay, little distracts from the movie’s threadbare storylines. The character of Little John—introduced as Yahya whose name is then conveniently anglicized into “John” for the audience—is put in chains in the Holy Land and then somehow stows away to England showing up in Robin Hood’s town. Later, we’re supposed to believe that the Crusades were funded on both sides by the Catholic Church and were actually a plot to overthrow the kingdoms of Europe. These are significant leaps of faith to ask viewers to make. But rather than building a believable plot, Robin Hood prefers to spend time on overly produced fight scenes with arrow machine guns, explosions, and fancy horse tricks.

Given all that filmmakers could have capitalized on, including a $100 million budget, ultimately it’s the audience who ends up being robbed.

Gender: 1/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? Nay, I say verily

If you strip Robin Hood down of its questionable aesthetic and script choices, it really is just an action movie. In this respect, similar to many other action blockbusters, women are not afforded much screen time. In fact, in the entire movie, only three female characters speak. Two of them are unnamed and only have one line.

The only one with significant lines is Marion, played by Eve Hewson. The movie starts promisingly, as it’s Marion who is the one trying to steal from the rich—incidentally, from Robin Hood—to give to the poor. From there it’s all downhill. As the love interest of first Robin Hood and then Will Scarlet, who she starts seeing when she’s falsely told that Robin Hood died in the Holy Land, Marion’s main role ends up being the helper of men and object of their desire. Throughout the film, Marion has her head caressed by Robin Hood, helps him in his quest to right the wrongs of the Sheriff of Nottingham (Ben Mendelsohn), and lies to Will about her love for Robin. In the end, it’s implied that it’s her rejection of Will’s love that convinces him to turn to the dark side, another trope dating back to Adam and Eve.

Race: 1.5/5

While only part of the movie takes place in the Holy Land, the Third Crusade looms over the rest of the movie’s plot. But rather than putting the Third Crusade into context as an attempt of Christian kings to recapture Jerusalem, the film instead falls back onto contemporary stereotypes that pit Muslims as natural enemies of a “freedom loving” western civilization. And, since it’s revealed that it’s the Church actually fomenting these divides, the movie’s depiction of Muslim and Arab characters as mainly nameless, faceless (they all wear turbans and scarves), and easily disposable feels even more problematic.

The choice to reimagine the character of Little John as Yahya, a captured Arab fighter who ends up teaming up with Robin Hood in England, is a double edged sword. While it could be seen as part of a positive trend of increased diversity in period pieces, the lazy storytelling of Robin Hood tarnishes this. There were perhaps some darker skinned soldiers on the Muslim side, but Saladin’s armies during the Third Crusade were overwhelmingly Egyptian, Kurdish, and Turkish, all non-Black ethnicities. Without giving the proper context, Foxx’s casting plays into the persistent European trope that all Arabs are Moors—and that all Moors are Black, a mischaracterization centuries in the making which “allowed for European discourses to legitimize … [the] biological superiority of white Christianity,” as asserted by New York University’s Mahdi Blaine. Without knowing it, Robin Hood falls into the same trap that gave us the racist Dutch tradition of Black Pete (but thankfully, without the horrific blackface.)

Perhaps the one positive to come out of the movie’s “modern” take on the tale of Robin Hood is that there is some ethnic diversity among the film’s extras.

Deduction for Religion: -0.50

Relying on lazy clashes between the Islamic world and the “West” to build interest in a subpar plot feels decidedly like a cheap shot.

Mediaversity Grade: F 1.00/5

Perhaps because the story of Robin Hood is so well known, Robin Hood was doomed from the start. The film’s creators sought to tell a familiar story in a new way, hoping to tick as many boxes as possible: war film, action hero film, fantasy, historical fiction. But in trying to be all things at once, Robin Hood only ends up being a disappointment.

Like Robin Hood? Try these other titles starring Taron Egerton or Jamie Dornan.

*Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021)*

Grade: FLiNovember 21, 2018