Before I even took my seat, I was warned — the Robin Hood you grew up with doesn’t live here. And they were right. The Death of Robin Hood is dark, brutal, and deeply sad, a far cry from the merry outlaw swinging through Sherwood Forest with a grin. This version strips away the folklore and asks a harder question: who was Robin Hood, really? What’s left when you peel back the legend? The answer is uncomfortable — and most audiences won’t be ready for it.
Right from the opening scene, any notion of the noble outlaw who robbed the rich to give to the poor vanishes fast. We find Robin Hood (Hugh Jackman) already hunted, surviving on instinct alone. A young woman stumbles upon him in the cold, and in what sets the tone for the entire film, she accepts his shelter — then tries to kill him in the night. Hood sees it coming. She doesn’t survive. Any lingering hope for Merry Men and forest campfires dies with her. What follows is a medieval world driven purely by power and survival. His longtime companion Little John (Bill Skarsgård) arrives — and if you thought Robin was dark, Little John makes him look restrained. Fueled by rage over his kidnapped wife and daughter, Little John tears through anyone in his path. The cycle of violence spirals fast — the family fights back, and Robin Hood nearly pays for it with his life. This isn’t a story about justice. It’s about men who’ve forgotten what justice even looks like.
The film shifts when Robin Hood is taken away to heal — and for the first time, we see something flicker behind the violence. He finds unexpected company in The Leper (Murray Bartlett) and Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer), and it’s here the film quietly asks its most important question: is there any redemption for a man like this? This section does slow down, and the pacing dips are noticeable — but the bond that forms between Robin and The Leper is the emotional core the movie needed. For a brief, honest moment, you see the outlaw the legend was built on — someone who actually cared about the forgotten, the broken, the disenfranchised. He’s also left to protect Little John’s daughter, hunted by those seeking revenge for her father’s sins. It’s a heavy burden on a man still carrying his own. The Death of Robin Hood won’t be for everyone. It’s grim, it’s unrelenting, and it deliberately dismantles everything comfortable about the myth. But if you can sit with the darkness, there’s something real underneath — a man trying to matter in a world that never gave him the chance.
This film hits theaters June 19th. I rate it a (3/4) 🍿
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