The new Robin Hood: a CGI superhero

The arrows have never flown so fast, Robin of Loxley has never dodged his enemies so cleverly, and the Sherriff of Nottingham has never before been so awful or inhuman. The 2018 reboot of Robin Hood is shooting for a younger audience, one which may well be more accustomed to the gaming console than a cinema screen.

In the lead role, Taron Egerton makes even Kevin Costner look flat-footed, never mind his predecessors Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn. For almost the entire 120 minutes, the action is unrelenting — interrupted only rarely by a brief melodramatic scene. The musical bombardment that serves as a soundtrack only ceases its fire as the final credits roll.

Leonardo DiCaprio's film follows the well-known formula — to a point

But that was exactly the effect that director Otto Bathurst and screenwriters Ben Chandler and David James Kelly wanted for the new Robin Hood. The film, which is being released in the US this week but won't be released in Europe until January, was produced by a team led by Hollywood heavyweight Leonardo DiCaprio.

So, everything just as expected with this update from Nottingham Forest? The film follows the basic and well-known formula of the story, setting the action in a fictionalized medieval England. Robin Hood fights against the evil Sheriff of Nottingham, steals from the rich and gives to the poor. At his back stand his well-known friends Little John and Friar Tuck. The beautiful Maid Marion is, as ever, there at Robin's side; but a few surprises also lurk in the forest.

Robin Hood 2018: a simple matter of good versus evil?

Anyone expecting the authors to have dug a little deeper into the characters — in the way that the big American series of the last decade have popularized flawed heroes and surprising plot twists — are going to be disappointed. In Robin Hood, the good guys are good, and the bad guys are very bad, with nothing in between. With one exception… more on that soon.

So, little depth to the story-telling, pretty uninteresting characters, no dramaturgical stumbling stones. But these were never in the vision that British film and TV director Otto Bathurst had for the modernization of the classic story. He says that to him the story is still timely and relevant, but that it doesn't need interesting protagonists to get its message across.

Director Otto Bathurst: 'We can identify with Robin Hood'

Bathurst says he's always been fascinated by the fact that the Robin Hood story has captured the public imagination for so long; and that for the last 800 years he has remained a hero because the government and the establishment have always been regarded as the enemy. Robin Hood is a symbol of the resistance, one who stands up against the status quo. Bathurst says people identify with the character because he's a superhero, but without superpowers.

It's true that earlier audiences loved Robin Hood as played by Douglas Fairbanks, or Errol Flynn, because he resisted, he stood up against the oppressor; but one has to ask oneself if Bathurst is familiar with those older versions of the character. When it comes to his claim that Robin Hood doesn't have superpowers, it doesn't really fit with his version of the character.

Taron Egerton resembles a computer-generated fantasy figure, so quick with bow and arrow that he can slay dozens of his enemies in just a few seconds, but hardly suffers so much as a scratch. And his immaculate hairdo stays perfect, down to the last strand, through even the most harrowing fight scenes. Egerton as Hood possesses exactly the superpowers that Bathurst denies.

Arabs and Christians, Syria and England

The film's subtext is more interesting. Robin's friend, Little John — in Bathurst's depiction a Saracen warrior, a Moor — first brings Robin Hood around to the idea of resisting the Sheriff. While Robin is a crusading knight in Syria, he and Little John, played by Jamie Foxx, form an unlikely alliance; Little John then returns with him to England.

And who do Robin Hood and Little John take up arms against?  Against the cruel and greedy Sheriff of Nottingham (Ben Mendelsohn), of course; but above all against the Christian church and the arch-villain, the cardinal (F. Murray Abraham).

An Arab (from Syria, don't forget!) who has been tortured by the western conquerors, a sympathizer with the rebels and the brains behind the uprising, he educates Robin and then pushes him towards his goal: the defeat of evil powers represented by the Western Christian church. Those barely concealed messages offer some potential for surprise in the new Robin Hood film.

Spoiler alert and an open door to a sequel

The only character twist in the film is that Will Scarlet, one of Robin's most faithful friends, is the only personage to display both positive and negative traits. In Bathurst's imagining of the tale, Will takes up with Marian, and in the final sequence becomes successor to the hated Sheriff. It smells like a sequel is brewing.