Gritty reboots; a mixed bag. Sure, it can be fun to see beloved franchises reimagined in a hyperreal sense (think Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy). But too often, it leads to ponderous excursions where all the fun of the original premise is stripped away, replaced with saturated colours, dirt on the lens and absolutely no jokes (think Matt Reeves’ The Batman). And the grit is often superficial, disguising the same old jam.
Robin Hood has been rebooted at least three times; first with the somewhat campy Prince of Thieves, where Kevin Costner gave him an American accent with a Bryan Adams tie-in. Then, in 2010, Ridley Scott brought the grit with an emotionally flat rendering of the character, now played by Russell Crowe with an Australian accent. Sure, it was a marginally more accurate depiction of the Middle Ages than Thieves, but it made sure we didn’t have any fun along the way. Oh, and Men in Tights, of course.
So, I was rather sceptical of The Death of Robin Hood, the new dark reimagining by writer and director Michael Sarnoski, featuring another Australian, Hugh Jackman, taking on the titular folk hero. But hurrah, The Death of Robin Hood is much more than a rehash. Sarnoski has delivered a truly gritty and unsettling vision of Robin of Loxley, in a film that is both grim and mysteriously beautiful.
In DORH, we’re in the mid-13th century, and Jackman plays a much older Hood, grizzled and on the run. Early on, he is joined by Little John (Bill Skarsgård), who seeks Robin’s aid to recapture his farm from unknown men. Robin accepts the task, and in the bleak melee that follows, he is gravely wounded and finds himself in the company of Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer) and a character known only as the Leper (Murray Bartlett) in remote English wilderness. It goes without saying that most of these men and women are not particularly merry at all.
In less capable hands, DOHR could easily come off as a cynical provocation, an attempt to wring more dollars out of tested IP by inverting the Robin Hood folklore. But in 2026, there’s a logical expediency to depicting Robin Hood as an amoral outlaw.
Like Peter Carey’s revisionist take on the Ned Kelly legend in True History of the Kelly Gang, Sarnoski’s film makes the point that the violence underscoring so many of our folk heroes has a harsh reality that the legend obscures. Perhaps the point is that history, and its heroes, are unknowable. The point is visualised well (by cinematographer Pat Scola) of Robin and Little John riding past the relics of their Pagan ancestors, as old and alien to them as the Middle Ages is to us. In Death, these images take on a lyrical intensity where the rugged mountains and crashing waves speak as loudly as the characters.
This Robin is not a chivalrous hero that robs from the rich to give to the poor, but rather a tortured outcast, exhausted and numb from the perpetual cycles of murder, theft and revenge that perpetuate his existence. Here, the film doesn’t pull its punches. Acts of violence are portrayed starkly and without romance. As Robin comments early on, he never knew any Maid Marian, and the Sheriff of Nottingham, far from being a villainous despot, was just another man whose throat he slit. Unlike Costner’s Robin Hood, who ends up becoming accepted by King Richard and brought back into the tent of the institutions he waged war on, Jackman’s Robin is banished, haunted by the echoes of his unspeakable crimes, and doggedly pursued by the next-of-kin of his many victims.
But Sarnoski’s film has an emotional undercurrent, a yearning for redemption that is essential – not sentimental – to the narrative. After a first act punctuated by brutal violence, Death makes a surprising narrative shift, exploring a relationship between Robin and Sister Brigid that must overcome a troubled past. Jackman, while looking perhaps a little more like The Witcher than was strictly necessary, nails the brief, providing glimpses of the honourable man buried within. Comer, too, brings a quiet intensity and sensuality to her character, clearly guarding her own secrets. The result is a film that is disturbing and cathartic. Just don’t go in looking for split arrows and campy sheriffs.
The Death of Robin Hood opens today in Australian cinemas.