‘The Death of Robin Hood’ review: Hugh Jackman leads a bleak, brutal, and boring re-imagining of the outlaw

It’s impossible to watch The Death of Robin Hood and not think of Logan. Both films star Hugh Jackman, and both mar his leading-man good looks with old age makeup, scars, and mangy facial hair. In each, he plays an anti-hero whose legend is one of noble heroism but whose reality is a trail of senseless carnage. And in both, his withered humanity is revived by protecting an orphaned girl. In this comparison, The Death of Robin Hood only suffers. 

Logan co-writer and director James Mangold created an emotionally rich drama, punctuated by breathtaking action sequences that showed new potential for superhero films viewed through a revisionist lens. The Death of Robin Hood‘s writer/director Michael Sarnoski, who has previously made the superb slow-burn thriller Pig and the awful horror prequel A Quiet Place: Day One, pursues a similar goal in re-interpreting the folk legend renowned for robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. But his interpretation lacks complexity, offering in its place much brooding, after a first act overstuffed with truly repulsive onscreen violence. 

There is an attempt at balance, as Sarnoski introduces female characters meant to be a soft and compassionate foil to Robin and his not-so-merry men’s brutality. But that feels frustratingly reductive and shallow.