Robin Hood The Rebellion -- a review

There have been so many films made about Robin Hood that it’s impossible not to hit one of them if you were to randomly shoot an arrow into a field. Hell, even Doctor Who has done a fun episode, Robot of Sherwood, that deals with the Robin Hood legend. But the most recent big-budget Robin Hood film, starring Taron Egerton--along with a weird assortment of costumes that looked like they were ripped off from a Star Trek episode--was a huge bomb, which might as well have brought the noble Legend of the Hood to an abrupt end.

But Robin Hood is an extremely tenacious fellow who should never be counted out, as proven in Robin Hood: The Rebellion, a thoroughly enjoyable and scrappy little film with a big heart that stars Ben Freeman as the Prince of Thieves. Finding out that his beloved Marian (Marie Everett) has been taken captive by the Sheriff of Nottingham (James Oliver Wheatley), Robin Hood plots a rescue. However this rescue involves storming the Sheriff’s castle stronghold. The ensuing raucous battle to rescue Marian, all while avoiding the Sheriff’s troops while running from room to room in this maze-like castle, makes for a very entertaining time.

Freeman is perfect as Robin; he’s a natural leader without being a tyrant, and he’s quite adept at the hand to hand combat scenes. Wheatley is an excellent foil; his Sheriff of Nottingham is a vicious-minded thug who rules everyone--even his own family members--through fear. And Everett is superb as Marian; she plays Robin’s love not as a quivering damsel in distress, but as a tough-minded woman trained in combat who doesn’t shy away from a fight. And the great Brian Blessed even appears in an inspired bit of casting as Friar Tuck, who helps Robin get his mojo back in a Yoda-like mentor scene.

Robin Hood: The Rebellion comes in at a lean 92 minutes. No epic bloat, here. The cast and crew just tell a simple story--rescue Marian from the Sheriff--as efficiently as it can, expertly using real castle locations as their sets, which enhances the production value. The entire cast, from the Sheriff’s henchmen to his serving wenches, all put their heart and soul into their roles, and the script manages to keep the story fresh with plenty of twists and turns. This is basically Die Hard in a castle, and it works very well--not just as a fun and imaginative action flick, but also as a reminder of the enduring rebellious spirit that Robin Hood embodied. --SF

Comments

Explorer From Another World

It’s Friday night during the summer in Beutter county, an idyllic farming community in Indiana, and the good folks are settling in for what should be another humdinger of an evening. Until their plans are shattered by the arrival of an Explorer From Another World! This turns out to be an alien (Gemma Sterling) who starts savagely killing people from the moment it disembarks from its flying saucer. Local kids Eddie (Colin McCorquodale), Marybeth (Sage Marchand) and Culpepper (Nolan Gay) are planning on seeing a movie, but it looks like they’ll be battling for the very survival of the human race instead! Explorer From Another World is a wonderfully done throwback to the B-movies of the 1950s and 1960s. Ably directed by Woody Edwards (who gives himself a small cameo as Hank in the sheriff’s jail cell), the film is forty five minutes long, but manages to tell its torrid but funny story very effectively in the time allotted. And the short running time tracks when you...

Presence -- A Review

Presence, the latest film from director Steven Soderbergh ( Sex, Lies and Videotape, Out Of Sight ), is based on his real life experiences with what he believes is a ghost in his own home. Inspired by his spectral roommate, Soderbergh wrote a few pages of a script, which he handed to David Koepp ( Panic Room, Jurassic Park ), who finished it. The film was shot in a house in Crandall, New Jersey, over just eleven days in September 2023 (they received an interim SAG-AFTRA agreement during the strike that year). Soderbergh shot this in the ‘found footage’ style, using only one camera, with himself as the camera operator. The result is that Presence is a haunted house story that is told from the point of view of the ghost. And it’s marvelous. But instead of the typical ’found footage’ movie, which is supposed to be culled together from film or video that is literally found after the fact, we see everything that’s happening in this house through the ‘eye...

Cleaner -- a review

In Cleaner Daisy Ridley ( Star Wars: The Force Awakens ) stars as Joanna “Joey” Locke, a window cleaner at a swanky London office building that serves as the headquarters for an energy company. Joey becomes late for work when she’s forced to take her autistic brother Michael (Matthew Tuck) to her job with her. Because of her lateness, her nimrod of a manager makes Joey work an hour late, well into the evening. Joey reluctantly keeps cleaning windows of bird splatter in the darkness, but eventually bird droppings wind up being the least of her problems. A team of terrorists arrive at a party that’s being held at the office for the energy company’s share holders. Disguised as performers, the terrorists seize the energy company’s board members as hostages, while knocking everybody else out with gas. Joey, still working on the windows outside, sees all of this and promptly goes into action. Because, as the film has earlier established, Joey is a former Britis...

The View From The Mountain

Search This Blog