The Death of Robin Hood (15,122 min)
Verdict: We have been robbed
Rating: Two stars
This week’s big release is The Death Of Robin Hood, starring Hugh Jackman and Jodie Comer.
If you like to imagine something along the lines of Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn’s wistful look at growing older in the tender 1970s classic Robin And Marian, think again.
This bloody, ultra-violent attack is more like The Sherwood Chainsaw Massacre (if chainsaws had been invented in 1247).
Forget men inside panty. A grizzled, battle-scarred Robin (Jackman) – clad in matted fur and an Old Testament beard that Roy Keane might envy – makes his way through a Pythonesque Britain awash in blood, mud and peasantry.
Mythologized as a champion of the meek, this Hood is permanently on the run from the vengeful descendants of his victims; a self-proclaimed ‘monster’ who ‘robbed and killed for the joy of it’.
And he’s not exaggerating. A good half of the film – if you can bear to watch it through your fingers – sees Robin and a very un-Merrie Little John (Bill Skarsgard, who played Pennywise the clown in It) energetically blasting their way through entire families of men, women and children for no apparent reason.
This week’s big release is The Death Of Robin Hood, starring Hugh Jackman and Jodie Comer
This may be due to the mumbled dialogue; you’ll be clamoring for subtitles, not least because of Hugh’s interesting Nottingham accent.
Ultimately, an injured Robin is forced to take a break from killing and seek healing on an idyllic island priory run by a kind prioress (Comer).
Here he gruffly cares for Little John’s daughter (Faith Delaney) and befriends a leper (Murray Bartlett), who speaks like The Little Book Of Zen and tells him it’s ‘never too late to find peace’. Whether you can hold out until he does is another matter.
Jackman and Comer are great talents, but writer-director Michael Sarnoski (Pig) leaves them scrambling for scraps.
Jackman digs deep, but we never find the real Robin under the hood. And over the course of two penalty hours, we really should.
Late Fame (15.96 mins)
Verdict: The writing
Rating: Three stars
Late Fame offers a warmer, more winning take on the making of male legends.
Willem Dafoe is perfect as Ed Saxberger, a forgotten New York poet from the 1970s who is living out his last years in a mail sorting office – until he is taken in by an adoring clique of smart, young people in turtlenecks.
“There’s nothing more exciting than a rediscovered male genius,” says Greta Lee’s philandering actress-turned-comedian. She’s the older muse of the group, Sally Bowles style, and the only true professional.
A witty look at today’s superficial desire for authenticity, but also the question of what it really means to be an artist – and who can become one.
This strange little comedy-drama perhaps doesn’t add much and leaves a number of loose threads dangling. But Dafoe and Lee are delightful. I would happily watch it again.
Willem Dafoe of Late Fame is perfect as Ed Saxberger, a forgotten New York poet from the 1970s who is living out his last years in a mail sorting office – until he is taken in by an adoring clique of smart, young things in polo necks.
Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass (15.94 min)
Verdict: Sex and the Silly
Rating: Two stars
Now to Gail Daughtry And The Celebrity Sex Pass, a silly Marmite sex comedy – if Hollywood had Marmite. You’ll either love it or be allergic to it.
Zoey Deutch ( Nouvelle Vague ) plays the excruciatingly perky Gail, a naive Kansas hairdresser whose fiancé and childhood sweetheart cashes in on his famous “sex pass” option — the famous person someone in a committed relationship is supposedly allowed to sleep with.
I won’t reveal his choice, because that’s actually quite funny. But the betrayal sends Gail on a quirky revenge mission to Tinseltown, to bed her own celebrity crush: Jon Hamm – although it’s Hamm’s Mad Men co-star John Slattery, who playfully sends himself up and steals the show.
An exhaustingly crazy twist on The Wizard Of Oz, sprinkled with star cameos, it has a crazy, Bill & Ted kind of enthusiasm that gradually exhausted me… in a good way.
Because as soon as you start giggling – in this case despite yourself – you’re done.
Now to Gail Daughtry And The Celebrity Sex Pass, a silly Marmite sex comedy – if Hollywood had Marmite. You’ll either love it or be allergic to it
All three films now in theaters.
