In the opening moments of Michael Sarnoski’s “The Death of Robin Hood,” Hugh Jackman’s Robin shelters on a cold and desolate peatland. A young attacker (Jade Croot) emerges from the dark emptiness beyond his campfire. He grabs her, tells her it was a mistake to bathe. He could smell her downwind. Then he puts a knife through her skull.Oo-de-lally, oo-de-lally, golly what a day.Whichever version of Robin Hood is your favorite — three cheers for the 1973 animated Disney one — the story takes a beating in “The Death of Robin Hood.” There are no knights in shining armor. There are no merry men. There is absolutely no swashbuckling.Sarnoski, the director of the excellent Nicolas Cage thriller “Pig” and sci-fi sequel “A Quiet Place: Day One,” has sapped every bit of derring-do from the folk hero. It’s a thoughtful inversion of myth with some compelling ideas about the nature of storytelling. But it’s a total slog.
“The Death of Robin Hood” drains the blood, and life, out of an old English legend. So forget about robbing from the rich and stealing from the poor. This Robin is a grizzled marauder who can’t even remember how many people he’s killed. We are, to say the least, very, very far from men in tights.
