Genre – Crime
Movie Total Runtime – 1 Hours 56 Minutes
Spoilers – Yes

One of the recent movies with just the “Robin Hood” title, I forget which iteration this is. The narrator on the opening credits does a great job of making me unhappy with the opening. It opens with a woman trying to steal a horse, and I can assume who these people are supposed to be, but I expect some introduction. She’s unfriendly despite not getting the appropriate reaction for a thief caught in the act. Horses are rarely cheap. This is apparently supposed to be the ‘meet cute’ for Robin and Marian. The narrator skips us past the work of establishing a relationship with a few short clips They are interrupted by a messenger with a literal “draft notice”.

Look, one of the few things established thusfar is that Robin is at this point a manorial lord, thus would have had military obligations as part of that tenure. It would not be a wax closed letter with giant “Draft Notice” text across the top. It would be an open muster, called with little secrecy and no surprise at being required to serve. Even when they wished to avoid it, that was always the pretext of their role in society. Even more absurdly, the camera shows us the text closely. It explicitly calls him to service in the Third Crusade in those terms.

“Taking the cross” was not done by sealed royal diktat, it was something done voluntarily as an act of faith. The tradition of numbering the crusades was not something done at the time, and was applied by historians trying to sort out the issue into neat packaged conflicts. At the bottom of the notice was the fact that it has been issued by the order of the Sheriff of Nottingham. If the Pope has to plead and persuade men to take the cross, a petty Shire Reeve in the north of England sure as hell can’t command it.

Four years later, for some bizarre reason, Robin is in Arabia rather than Syria and Judea where the conflict took place. His team is ambushed by a single heavy machine crossbowman whose magic crossbow imparts wrecking ball force with tiny motions of a handle. This magic machine crossbow takes drum magazines and reloads much like a heavy machine gun would.

If you wanted to make Robin Hood set in a modern time, do it. The whole ambush reads as something from a post WWII infantry skrimish. You know, with guns. The whole thing about crossbows is that they’re slow as hell. The handful of repeating models (most famously a Chinese one used in the Boxer rebellion during the days of the Maxim gun) sacrificed all their power for that repeating functionality. The scene works with a Dushka but not this magical mystery crossbow. The infantry tactics are all movern, and of the sort predicated on individual firepower. Just give him an M4 instead of a longbow and the sequence looks natural again. Also, holding a longbow at full draw the way these guys are will wear out your arms right quick. Mind you, that’s before you factor in that the draw weight of a period longbow was over a hundred pounds. (The wreck of the Mary Rose from a few centuries later was found to contain longbows with draw weights over a hundred and fifty pounds). Modern bows, even recurve bows, tend not to go above sixty. Now if you did your research on compound bows you might not realize that the ability to hold those at a draw is mechanically aided. But even those cannot be easily held for as long as this scene runs.

This Modern warfare archery DLC continues with Saladin’s goons ambushing the squad in yet another modern approach to combat, plus bullet-time archery as they go firing mid-leap. Despite the hyper-advanced magical crossbows of several designs being deployed, the seige artillery that opens up on the city walls is Less advanced than what would have been brought to bear by either side.

During the bombardment, Arab Ninja gets the drop on Robin and they start to fight hand to hand. Robin loses and was nearly choked out before another crosader chops off Arab Ninja’s hand. Somehow, despite this happening during a frantic withdrawl of Crusader forces, Arab Ninja is shown among the captives as orders come down to start executing them. Anyway, Robin fails to save Arab Ninja’s son but does end up causing a mass escape, and gets shot. Gisborne orders him “put on a hospital barque back to England.”

The visual design of the outfits worn by both sides is very much intentionally mirroring modern kit, with the crude lamellar over tunic pattern of the crusaders being a dead ringer for modern plate carriers over desert camo minus the camo patterning. The film makers either did not want to make a period peice, did not know how to make a period piece, or thought they were more clever than they are.

I can’t not see the “Modern Warfare with copy-paste of crusade era terminology” slathered all over this film. It doesn’t work. If you want to use modern tropes, just use a modern setting. It can even be an alternate modern setting.

Arab Ninja stows away on the boat with Robin as we return to a manor that I just now realize is way too hilly to be near Nottingham. His manor is in ruins with seizure notices nailed to the door. Robin goes to see Tuck, who while still an ecclesiastical man is sitting in a confessional in an established church rather than acting as a Mendicant Friar. I can’t tell if he’s tonsured, but the shoulder-length locks sticking out from under his cap suggest not. Tuck exposits what’s happened while he’s been away. Apparently the Sheriff has managed to bring the industrial revolution centuries early given the works at the minehad Robin goes looking for Marian at. The filmmakers go “flare-offs are industrial, lets have some gouts of flame” to go with the more advanced mill works. Problem is that gas flares are associated with petroleum and chemical processing to deal with waste gasses that can’t be economically contained and otherwise utilized.

Robin finds that since he was declared dead by the Shire Reeve, Marian has moved on. Arab Ninja catches up with him here and appoints himself to the mentor role while preaching the Marxist gospel of oppression dynamics. To contrast the revolutionary nutcase, the Sheriff finally appears on screen giving a stump speech as though he were a modern politician. Why he feels compelled to do so is lost on me. Even within the context of the story as presented, nothing about his situation would suggest this as a course of action. In a case of “filmmakers are not as clever as they think” the issues he harps on are a patently transparent “lets make him use modern day style talking points of the people we hate”. Except they grafted it to “so my crushing taxes need to be paid” instead of the policy platforms they tend to go with.

I am confused. The whole proceeding goes as though he is presenting legislation to parlement. But it’s on a balcony, with the rabble down below.

Anyway we have an insulting scene where Arab Ninja teaches Robin about archery. Yeah I buy that. Right. Uh-huh. Fuck you.

So the armed robbery begins. Arab Ninja’s plan is the Batman Gambit where Robin publicly plays the rich fop while conducting the crimes anonymously. This turns into a montage of murder and robbery. The flaw in the logic of the plan is painfully obvious to me. Robin has a delapidated ruin for a manor with no economic interests supporting it, yet is throwing around sacks of cash. There is no shortage of fellow crusaders who can attest to the lack of any great booty being taken that would explain this surplus of funding, but suddently there’s a crime spree going on. A crime spree which coincided with his return. Lets see if the Reeve picks up on the pattern.

Nope, he confides in the mole.

So, Marian’s new man is Will, presumably surname Scarlet. He discusses his lack of confidence in the activities of the thief. So Robin recklessly decides to escalate to attacking the treasury. The manditory stealth section is failed, forcing him to fight his way out, penniless. More magical repeating crossbow fire follows him out. Except, during the escape, Arab Ninja, the only bald black man in Nottinghamshire, does not cover his face. I get that Robin is the more famous of the two, but they have been seen together with Arab Ninja playing the part of the foreign servant Robin brought back from Crusade. It does not take a detective to add this to the pattern. While I’ve called him “Arab Ninja” that’s only because he made his appearance with face covered as part of the forces fighting in the Arabian battle. He’s actually black.

So, to add to the list of things the writer does not understand, we can add clergy and their mechanisms of control. Bald Priest pressures the Sheriff to crack down on the criminal to remove the symbolic nature of the spree. He openly states that the objective is to kill the commoners’ hope. A villainous priest does not kill hope, he weaponizes it. The promise of the hereafter and doing Gods work on Earth is a powerful motivator. Words are his weapons. He would attack from the pulpit, preaching against the murderous madman trying to bribe his way into their hearts while undermining the fabric of society. But then the writer would have to write an effective speech rather than have him menace the Sheriff in private. After Bald Priest leaves, Gisborne enters with his medieval tacticool task force to begin the hunt in earnest. At the same time, Tuck and Marian begin their own plan which was not detailed but involves the welcoming party for the Cardinal.

We get more Marxist drivel as Marian says things at the party that would have her in irons and slated for a hemp necktie in a society thus depicted. The writer is also strongly anti-clerical if not downright anti-christian. I’m not surprised that they have no grasp of economics, or how the Sheriff’s plans will simply cripple his ability to raise revenue. The historical Saladin Tithe, and the Tax to ransom Richard were one-time events, but were the source of the tax plot attached to the Robin Hood legend when he was put into the time of Prince John.

Anyway, in Clown Commie World, Gisborne leads the army to plunder and burn their own territory, including the minehead. We are firmly into Stupid Evil territory. At least Gisborne finally clocks Marian as she has deserved for some time now. This leads to the obligatory action scene and wagon chase. Horses in this movie world can and will ride into solid plank walls and out the other side. Horses in reality have a strong sense of self preservation, getting them to charge into a wall is nigh impossible. But these horses appear to be CGI. No wonder they can shrug off falling 6×6 beams landing on them.

In another case of “This isn’t how any of this works.” During the chase they knock over a giant crucible of molten metal with razor-thin walls, and no heat source to have the metal yellow-hot and running like water. At least try to stay within the suspension of disbelief. Please.

Added to the magic crossbow arsenal are rocket-propelled genades. In the aftermath of the boom, Arab Ninja pulls a last stand to delay Gisborne’s army. He fails in getting killed. We have a scene between him and the Sheriff. Somehow, the Sheriff knows the Arab Ninja’s history with his first capture by Gisborne in Arabia, but hasn’t put the pattern together and wastes time trying to get information out of him.

The rabble rousers spout more Marxist drivel in raising a revolution. I am proven wrong about the assertion that Arab Ninja is the only black man in Nottinghamshire – the rabble is a multi-culti nightmare. But until the revolution, they’re out of sight. They certainly haven’t been hanging around nobility.

Anyway, action sequence ending. I’m long done with this movie. There are more things I could point out that are so very wrong, but I made my point. They try to sequel bait with Will being appointed the replacement Sheriff, but I’m just glad it’s over.

Avoid this crap.