The Death of Robin Hood movie review: Hugh Jackman, Jodie Comer and Bill Skarsgård are stuck in the muck of a sternly revisionist A24 film

Listen, I’m not a Robin Hood fan. I’m more than willing to see a reviewer take on the legendary folk hero who has been portrayed on screen so many times. Of course, I’m partial to the fun Robin Hood, as portrayed by Errol Flynn. Or the mature and contemplative Robin Hood, by Sean Connery. Or Kevin Costner’s cruel and vengeful Robin Hood. Hell, I even enjoyed Cary Elwes’ parody of Robin Hood in one of Mel Brooks’ lesser efforts, Robin Hood: Men in Tights. So if director and screenwriter Michael Sarnoski (pig, A Quiet Place: Day One) wants to give us a radical version that tells us, as the film’s marketing tells us, “He wasn’t a hero,” all right.

Unfortunately, the director is too eager to fulfill his premise The death of Robin Hood It becomes hard work. You spend most of the feature film’s running time wishing its main character would die a quicker death.

Hugh Jackman, sporting a flowing gray mane and a thick, scraggly beard that makes him look like a yeti, plays a reclusive Robin who has long been separated from his merry men. He wanders the thirteenth-century countryside, always shrouded in fog, and suffers from a severe depression. He seemed to be tormented by the knowledge that he was not in fact a hero who stole from the rich and gave to the poor, but rather a ruthless murderous criminal, who apparently had a very good publicist.

Robin wants to abandon his violent ways, but just when he thought he was out of the game, he was pulled back by his old cohort Little John (an unrecognizable Bill Skarsgård), who recruited him for one last battle. Things don’t go well for Robin, who ends up seriously injured and wakes up to find himself recovering in a remote convent where he’s cared for by the kind Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer, interestingly restrained).

Considering that we’re talking about Hugh Jackman and Jodie Comer, you might think that a romantic relationship between their characters would develop. But this is not that kind of movie. Instead, Robin moves toward a kind of moral redemption by becoming a mentor to Margaret (Faith Delaney, here), a troubled young girl whose father was killed in battle, and the young man Arthur (HamnetNoah Jupe seeks revenge and suffers an injury that costs him an eye. Robin also strikes up a friendship with a sentimental and philosophical leper (Murray Bartlett, covered from head to toe in wrappers), whose good qualities he somehow recognizes.

Very little happens in the film, and since Robin and Sister Brigid are both taciturn, there’s not a lot of sparkling dialogue either. Instead, the director relies heavily on setting the mood, using techniques like a shifting color palette (when some vibrant colors break through the gloom at the end, it feels like an oasis in the desert), different aspect ratios, harsh sound design, and popular music suitable for a funeral. The intense violence is presented in a gory, graphic manner that seeks to remind you that medieval England was no country for old people.

It’s all very dramatic, including the repeated bloodletting that Sister Brigid applies to Robin’s arm (the camera lingers lovingly on every spilled drop). But the harsh, humorless procedurals never achieve the depth they aim for, and Robin’s revisionist stance never proves interesting or revealing. And although Jackman brings an undeniable grizzly strength to the role — his Wolverine is practically a cutout by comparison — the performance is so off-putting that you never really engage with the character. “I’m tired,” Robin announced early. And by the time the movie is over, you’ll feel exhausted, too.