Robin Hood (2018) Review — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:00] I do still have... yes, there are still Swedish berries. Okay, so... So what I need... so I'm gonna need you... I'm gonna need you to sit there.

[00:14] I need you to sit there. And... and I'm... I'm going to try to explain this movie to you.

[00:26] Okay. And now, I... Okay. Do you want me to start with the sequel bait ending,

[00:38] Maid Marian's pity costumes, or the extended description of the Sheriff of Nottingham being raped with a broomstick when he was a child?

[00:51] Wow. Wow. There's a lot of grad to cover here. oh how about the opening like this the movie basically starts as it's Zero Dark Loxley

[01:03] The Hurt Loxley Robin of Loxley's Long Halftime Walk Finding Saving Private Loxley

[01:16] you know it's it's the Sicario prequel we didn't want or need it's Sicario 1282

[01:28] the thin red Loxley full metal Loxley not just a war sequence there is a there is a

[01:40] a semi-automatic ballista there is a sequence okay okay every war movie since Saving Private Ryan has a scene where, like, the entire squad is pinned down by machine gun fire,

[01:57] and they're, like, hiding behind, like, pillars, and they've got to, like, use a mirror to try to be, where is he? I can't, oh, and then they've got to, like, do a flanking mirror. Yeah, there's that, except they're pinned down, and they're pinned down by fire from a ballistic,

[02:16] and they can fire, like, six bolts a second. and it's even, you know, you've got the tower, and it's got a dome, and there's, like, a crack in it, and the ballista's, like, setting that,

[02:29] and then they're down in, like, this, like, open square, and they're, like, pinned behind, like, tiny pillars, and they try to, like, look at it in the reflection of it. That's not just, that's what they are trying to, like, use in the earth.

[02:41] Oh, yeah, and, and, and, all of their armor, so they're wearing, like, a bardish, You know, so leather jacket with just, like, you know, metal plates sewn onto it,

[02:54] except it has been intentionally designed to match, like, the quilting of a modern flak jacket. They're wearing medievalized, modern stuff.

[03:08] And this goes through the entire thing. Someone really had their heart set on shooting a modern war movie, but had to settle for making it. Had to settle for Robin Hood. Now, there's a stylization to it that is, I want to like the stylization.

[03:29] I do want to like the stylization. Like, it's got a sort of V for Vendetta vibe to a lot of it in that there's sort of an unreality to it. It's weird, but it's not necessarily bad.

[03:44] Where it's just straight up bad is when you get to, like, the acting and the writing and trying to act the writing.

[04:00] You don't have a lot of those, no actor could deliver this line well. No, no, it's, this is, this movie was made by Garth Marenghi.

[04:12] This is a Garth Marenghi's Dark Place movie. Like, I know writers who use subtext, and they're all cowards. At multiple, like, multiple, multiple times throughout the movie,

[04:27] characters just straight up say exactly like, oh my god. So, so there's this whole plot

[04:41] where like Robin, where Robin needs to infiltrate a meeting between the Sheriff of Nottingham and the Cardinal.

[04:53] Okay, sure. And so, like, it's... Okay, so Robin gets back from the Crusades. From the wars. Gets back from the war. Stuff happens and he cooks up this plan...

[05:07] Well, actually, Jamie Foxx's character... Jamie Foxx is in this movie? Do you remember Morgan Freeman's character from Princess Bees? Mm-hmm. Yeah, so he, that character has been merged with Little John.

[05:23] Okay. And there's two gags where, so he's a Moor and has a name that I cannot confirm the veracity of,

[05:36] but it is either Moorish or Arabic. Or as close as the writers have cared to get. and there are multiple instances of a gag,

[05:54] very, like, the old hack gag, where it's like, what's your name? Da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And then all of the English-speaking characters, like, struggle to say it.

[06:07] And he was like, I would just translate it into your language. You may call me John. And then they reused that at the end, where Friar Tuck, who seeks Arabic, you know, is like,

[06:19] and what's he going to do? And it's like, how about I just translate it and call you John? And then that's like the dip to black for the first couple titles before it then comes back in for the big sequel bait reveal that Jamie Dornan is now the actual sheriff of Nottingham,

[06:33] and that this is like, this is Batman Begins Robin Hood edition. Okay, wait, so there's been that two sheriffs. Well, I mean, sure, like, it's a title, so, in Sheriff of Nottingham.

[06:49] And someone else claims the title, and it stands to be Sheriff of Nottingham, too. Yes, so Robin comes back from the war, and Marion is now,

[07:02] Marion is stacked up with this dude, Jamie Dornan, who is, I guess, trying to be, like, a people's revolutionary or something. It's very unclear what his, like, goals are, but...

[07:16] Okay, he is Will Scarlet, vaguely. Will Scarlet, yeah. And he... So...

[07:28] In the climax... In the climax, he sees Marion and Robin kiss. and then in the epilogue,

[07:45] the Cardinal promotes him to sheriff because he now hates Robin.

[07:58] And so the movie ends with like Robin and Marion and the gang going out into Sherwood Forest. And so the end of the movie is, like, the status, is the setup for the, like, status quo of Robin Hood.

[08:15] The day in the Sherwood Forest fighting oh we had a placeholder sheriff of Nottingham who had terrible things done to him as a boy Yes Yes So

[08:29] so Robin's doing this whole, like, he's playing both sides. He's, like, robbing, he's, like, robbing the collection plate at church, but he's also, like, but then during the day, he's, like, schmoozing as Robin

[08:42] of Loxley, as a noble, and, you know, Batman. Yeah.

[09:15] scene where the sheriff throws a party for the cardinal and it's like a gambling hall and they're all playing crafts in 1282.

[09:28] So they're like standing around this like crafts table. Like I said, like the stylization is weird, but I'm kind of okay. I want to like the stylization. I'm looking at a bunch of set photos right now.

[09:40] Yeah, all these nice fancy stylish modern jackets they're wearing in our house. Yeah, you know, it's, oh, so they're trying to recreate that, the Dark Knight conversation,

[09:55] except the dialogue is just so hack. It's just, it's so clumsy and bad and, like, on the nose. Like, characters are just like, it's like, well, Sheriff, it takes a thief to catch a thief.

[10:09] and and it's like and the whole reason okay Marion isn't so Marion isn't a noble in her own right

[10:22] in this one she's a peasant so the whole reason she's at this party is because Friar Tuck convinces convinces the sheriff

[10:36] to send a few invitations to important people amidst, amongst the peasantry, which is why Marion and Will are there.

[10:49] Okay. It's an excuse to get them there. It's an excuse to have them there. Um, and, but that just makes it even weirder, because it's like, because

[11:01] there's multiple scenes where there's a scene. Okay. The sheriff says, out loud, they're not my people, they're my subjects in one scene.

[11:14] Okay. And yet he also tolerates a tremendous amount of influence from, like, it's very just not

[11:33] clear where it's going. But, okay, so I would say there's this meeting between the cardinal and the sheriff that Robin needs to infiltrate, and he infiltrates it, and he has to, like, he sells out Friar Tuck.

[11:47] It's a ruse. He does a ruse and infiltrates the meeting, and they say, welcome to the big table now,

[11:59] as they, like, close the doors on the private secret meeting. And then the moment the doors are closed, it is in like three seconds of dialogue. Okay, so we're going, it's like, all right, so everything is on track with our plan that you and I have cooked up to fund the Arabian army so that they will defeat the English to destabilize the country so that we can seize the crown.

[12:27] and the only reason the only like I am very clear detail very clear detail same thing about where we are

[12:39] in our conspiracy in our conspiracy in our long running in our like decade long conspiracy to destabilize a nation and seize power I won't even touch the historical plausibility of a statement

[12:51] like that like I won't even bother so that's their plan okay and wait which two characters The Cardinal and the Sheriff. So the Cardinal and the Sheriff are conspiring to fund the other side of the Crusades,

[13:15] who, it wouldn't be Saladin's army. It would be. It would be? He was the one who fought Richard Lionheart. Okay, so, yeah, so they don't say, yeah.

[13:28] Or since we don't quite know where the timeline is actually is, since this is a setup, but yes, they're funding the Muslims. They're funding the Muslims. As though England had any wealth at that time comparable whatsoever to this role with it.

[13:46] This role with it. So they're funding the Muslims so that the Muslims will defeat the English army, specifically,

[14:01] thus destabilizing Richard's claim to power, allowing the Sheriff of Nottingham to... Was there any Prince John anywhere in this?

[14:13] No. Huh, okay. I guess they're saving him for the people. The first shot you see of Maid Marian, it's like, okay, so she's dressed,

[14:30] she's dressed like, you know the outfit that Prince Jasmine wears when she sneaks out of the palace at the beginning of Aladdin? Yes. She's dressed like that, except, okay, she's dressed like that,

[14:42] And she, like, crawls through this window into the stable to steal a horse. But then she turns around, and, like, the front of her bodice is just, like, this deep v-neck with, like, crisscrossing laces holding it together.

[14:56] Perfect close to a skink robbing, you know. And she's, then, then Robin comes in, like, and they have this meet-cute where she's trying to steal a horse because, like, her neighbor's horse died.

[15:11] and without a horse to plow their fields, they're all going to starve. And he's like, well, you can just steal my horse. I'll just let you have my horse. You can just steal it like you've stolen my heart already.

[15:24] And then they start making out, and then there's an extended montage where they make out. And then Robbins gets drafted and the draft letter. So the stylization starts subtly. He gets this draft letter,

[15:36] and the whole thing is like an illuminated manuscript. It's what giant Germanic calligraphy fought, like, all down the, all down the, by the order of the Sheriff of Nottingham.

[15:52] Yeah, I'm pretty sure, yeah, like, a draft letter in that historical context would just be his liege lord calling all his, you know, subordinate lords, who were down the feudal pyramid, but I'm still your own lord. Yeah, it'd just be a page show.

[16:05] I'm like, your lord has summoned you. You can't read anyway, so you might as well. reading this whole priest and so he gets that

[16:20] so he goes off to war then you get zero dark wax fleet for like ten minutes and I don't even know who this character is this is my favorite out of context coat yes that coat is amazing and

[16:33] and as you can see like extremely V for Vendetta yeah like all these guards in the background with their massive gauntlets and weird helmets and armor Oh and they got riot shields They got leather riot shields like modern police riot shields

[16:49] Like I said, like there's elements to the stylization that I want to like, and the whole, like it tries really hard to be about like how the government, like how the wealthy are

[17:08] basically just like exploiting the poor and funding wars for their own for for their own purposes and you know it's it's this kind of like rise up eat the rich sort of thing but it's so clumsy and

[17:25] ham-handed and and really does end up delving into like just full-on conspiracy theory territory with the whole, you know, oh, the sheriff is, the sheriff and the church are secretly funding the other side

[17:43] so that they can take power, and it's not about, so it tries to be about wealth inequality, but really it's about, oh, well, there's some bad rich people, and we've got to watch out for the bad rich people.

[17:58] and the only person who can start a bad rich the only person who can start a bad rich person is a good rich person yeah

[18:10] yeah yeah so are all meat-bearing dumps terrible? oh every single one has just like it ranges between tasteful and absurd

[18:24] amounts of cleavage um there's a Jamie Foxx is in this movie no Jamie Foxx is in this movie and he loses his hand during Zero Dark Locks Lee

[18:36] and then because so Robin tries to save Jane Robin tries to

[18:48] save John's son from getting beheaded by uh asshole drill sergeant type.

[19:02] And... Okay, so... There's a character in this that is basically just soap from the

[19:17] Modern Warfare Call of Duty games. Okay. I see it's pretty much just the character of soap. He's got the mustache and dresses in tactical black,

[19:33] and it's very, very strange. But so Robin tries to save John's son from getting beheaded, but he gets killed.

[19:45] And then there's, I don't know, a riot of some kind. the action is very poorly shot and it's difficult to tell what happened, but John ends up getting away, stows away on the boat.

[19:57] So they, like, Robin gets injured, so they throw him on a boat to send him back to England. John stows away on the boat and, like, stalks Robin, and then is like, you see everything that is wrong with your home.

[20:09] I'm going to teach you to be Batman. And then there's an extended monster. Little John is the mentor? Little John is, yeah, Little John. the role of the role of Ra's al Ghul

[20:22] will be played by Little John who is Jamie Foxx and then there's this extended montage of it, okay you know the montage

[20:35] you know the training montage in Bad Andy Superman that everyone makes fun of where Bruce Wayne is just like I'm so dark and angry I'm going to lift chains

[20:47] I'm going to flip tires. Yeah, they do that. Okay. And everybody walks around with their bows, like their M16s.

[21:01] There's, like, three swords in the entire movie. Everyone's either using a bow or a crossbow. Soldiers have leather ride shields.

[21:13] Yeah. Which really just use normal medieval shields because the whole point of modern riot scenes is you can see through them. Oh, yeah, they've got, they have two port windows in them. I hope Robin's people see some too.

[21:27] Oh, yeah, during that whole sequence, Molotov cocktails come out. Oh, of course. That's for these glass bottles where we're all over the place.

[21:39] Oh, yeah, and like they've got Molotov cocktails and... And, uh, oh, yeah, and everybody's, like, there's a character wearing a bandana with, like, with, like, the skull, uh, with the, it's, um.

[22:00] See, that sort of match-up styling would work better in a comedy. Like, now I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about the Mel Brooks, relatively, parody. and being like, if you want to have your bizarre medieval stylized, you know, stuff,

[22:16] it can't be a movie that's also trying to take itself seriously. It ends up being a lot, like, all throughout it I was thinking ultraviolet. You know, one of those movies that has, like, an element of just, like,

[22:31] absurdly overwrought stylization that's trying just, like, way too hard, but then there isn't some other hook to really get you to buy in. You know, if you're going to compare, like, Ultraviolet to V for Vendetta,

[22:47] or if you're going to compare, like, literally anything to the output of Baz Luhrmann, you know, it's missing that extra little bit.

[22:59] And the fact that, like, the script is so bad and the characters are, like, unmemorable, and there's a whole chase scene, there's an extended chase scene,

[23:11] where the green screen compositing is some of the worst I've seen since, honestly, like, Spawn. Like, it just looks so much.

[23:31] It looks so flat. And you can tell the shake has been added in post, because, like, there's just that little difference. Like, the perspective doesn't change, so everything just, like, slides around,

[23:45] but it slides around, like, way too smooth and mechanically. You know, so they added camera shake in post, but the camera shake has no rhyme or reason to it,

[23:59] and it's just kind of floating there. And so that combined with the fact that everybody just looks like paper cutouts in front of, in a diorama is, it makes it pretty bad.

[24:15] And the sequence goes on for, like, quite a while. So it's not just like, oh, here's a shot that, like, I don't know. It's a quick shot. They did what they had to. But it's like it keeps coming back to these composite shots,

[24:29] like over and over for a very long time. and so you get a lot of time to keep re-evaluating how good that matting is.

[24:41] Well, I can't wait for this movie to hit Netflix so we can have everyone over and watch. I feel like there's a ton that I'm missing or that I'm just forgetting to mention.

[24:58] um yeah well okay wait wait there was one talk about Friar Tuck Tuck Okay Friar Tuck is played by Tim Minchin Okay The comedian musician

[25:11] Okay. And he's probably actually like the most charming person to cast because Tim Minchin just like exudes charisma. He's a very charming soul. But he ends up being out of place and...

[25:26] In this like grim, dark movie. Yeah. So he's the comic relief, and they basically, it's like they wrote the role for Simon Pegg,

[25:41] but they could only get Tim Minchin. And I don't want that to sound like a slight against Tim Minchin, but it would be a budgetary, for budgetary reasons, the part of Simon Pegg will be played by Tim Minchin.

[25:56] And I don't know. So, like, there's, he, okay, he keeps, everybody has a plot. Everybody has a plot or a scheme that, like, they're all keeping secret.

[26:11] That just reminded me of another scene that, like, makes sense. So, okay, after Robin is first seen back in Nottingham, he goes back to his mare, which is kind of, like, busted up because, like, it got trashed while he was gone.

[26:25] and like Marion comes by to see him and she's like standing at the doorway like Robin are you there Robin Robin and and John is like you can't you know it's like she can't know anything about our plans to like you know to to play both sides against the uh uh against the

[26:42] sheriff like she can't know that we're going to be like stealing from him but also like you know doing this like you you need to be Robin of Locksley the aristocrat to her and it's like okay, so he's going to go downstairs and, like, just play it up.

[26:57] So he starts moving, and then John grabs him again, and he's like, you can't go down there, because reasons. And it's really just an excuse to, like, not have her involved.

[27:19] For whatever reason. For whatever reason. but then the reason is that if she were involved, like, because she and Friar Tuck are also conspiring to do something.

[27:34] Don't know what, but they're conspiring to do something. Well, I do know what because I saw the resume. So, like, they keep it secret for quite a long time, but then she's also keeping secrets from Jamie Dorman.

[27:51] who himself also has nebulous plans that basically sound like it's very strange. It's kind of this, of all of the anachronisms,

[28:06] the one where Jamie Dornan is basically planning to, like, start a constitutional democracy is the one that bugged me the most. like that's that's the one that actually kind of made me go like wait what you know the coats

[28:26] the like the clothing the uh everybody the big vegas party all of that you know i was like okay he's like i'm gonna start a constitutional republic in nottingham

[28:39] that's the one that kind of kind of got me also that then he becomes like this political revolutionary who at the very end turns into the fascist sheriff of Nottingham

[28:52] because his girlfriend hooked up with her ex even though he was like 100% on board with their rebellion until the moment

[29:04] that he's like no no my girl kissed another man. She is spoiled forever. I'm gonna become the villain. I'll show you. I'll show you.

[29:18] Oh, also he gets like his ear burnt off, so there's like a whole two-faced reveal. The Batman parallels just keep going. Like they really just keep going. Friar Tuck and Marion have their plan,

[29:32] like their plot, which basically they're looking for essentially the same information as Robin and

[29:44] John are, except they actually know what they're looking for, where Robin and John are still at the stage of like, we need to figure out what's going on, even though the answer is like, I don't know. I think you guys should have talked

[29:56] for me and Marion, man. Yeah, that's the reason why they can't talk. Otherwise, they would have to basically jump over an entire stage of the plot. Wow, such beautiful writing to you. Yeah. That's an elegant plot strategy.

[30:09] So Tuck and Marion are already on the stage of figuring out, or basically proving that there is a conspiracy, and so during the party they break into some room full of documents

[30:23] and find a bunch of, basically they find a bunch of, like, ledgers in Arabic. They were basically just straight up like, okay, 7,000 troops, and here's how much money we're going to pay for these 7,000 troops,

[30:42] signed by the Sheriff of Nottingham, and I will keep that in my filing cabinet with the rest of my important documents. Gotta leave a paper trail on this. You want to get a receipt when you're dealing with the Turks, I tell you what.

[30:57] it's the whole conspiracy plot that ultimately just like drives me that I think tips me over the edge because one it's like very ham-handed it's very poorly handled all of the villains are

[31:13] like mustache twirling and just like saying exactly what they're everybody just says exactly what they're thinking there's multiple times it's like it's like no Robin I know the real you

[31:25] you're the hood Loxley is the disguise and it's like I know writers use subtext and they're all cowards but it's like

[31:39] what's the sheriff's plan he's got this convoluted plan to undermine money they can't just make the acquisition of money

[31:52] they can't just hoarding wealth, they can't just leave it at hoarding wealth, because that would just then condemn Robin. And it could have just been something like,

[32:05] oh, he's willing to sell information about the English army to the other side for money, or he's willing to... But then he would be getting money from the Turks

[32:18] instead of taking all of the money from the people of Nottingham. and it can't just be he's taking the money from the people of Nottingham but that he's putting the money

[32:30] to evil uses evil uses yeah yeah the simple acquisition of wealth can't be the problem because that would condemn Robin for being you know

[32:42] a wealthy person in a feudal system where like he basically straight up owns people the movie's very sure not to the movie's very sure not to condemn Robin for his vast wealth.

[32:58] For his feudal holdings. So, yeah, so Robin Hood, Sicario 2082, 1282.

[33:13] Zero Dark Lots, please. I hope you've compiled all of these. I compiled many. I compiled many of them. Yeah.