Nate At The Movies

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.

No matter what movie I saw today, it was going to be hard for it to follow Toy Story 5, which I absolutely adored. The challenger up to that task was The Death of Robin Hood, which I foolishly prepared for last week by rewatching the original animated Robin Hood. I could’ve gleaned this from the trailer, but these two Robin Hoods couldn’t have been more different, nor had less to do with each other. I was in for a quite a movie from the opening killing scene, a sequence type shockingly absent from the fox one.

More than almost any other 2026 release so far did The Death of Robin Hood take forever to grow on me. While the exposition of this movie was, in retrospect, important in telling the story of this outlaw, it was very boring. There wasn’t really anything driving the story forward for the first hour or so; it wasn’t until Margaret arrived on the island that things started moving and Robin Hood started changing. The film looked pretty and was shot well during the boring parts, fortunately, but since I’ve seen hundreds of movies with genuinely engaging exposition, this was certainly a boon to the film overall.

The story really started working for me with the arrival of Margaret. I’m always a sucker for father-daughter stories, and Robin’s bond with Margaret was incredibly touching. The bow and arrow served as such a good symbol of their bond, with both Margaret’s spontaneous hug and the final loosing of the arrow at the end making my heart melt. Also, I don’t know what it is with movies recently telling me it’s okay to let go, but they all seem to know that that’s what I need to hear right now, so I appreciate them. I also enjoyed Robin’s relationship with Godwin/“Arthur”. While much shorter, their bond was more intense and urgent. I liked how Robin got to “kill” his old self in a few ways: by caring for Margaret and by turning Godwin away from the path that he himself took that got him to this position. It was an impressive amount of character growth for a film that has just about lost me before Margaret arrived.

The Death of Robin Hood unfortunately didn’t come out as my favorite Robin Hood movie of all time (that dang fox and his friends are hard to beat), but after thinking I was going to give this movie 2 stars at the halfway point, it pulled off an unlikely comeback. I wouldn’t rewatch it any time soon, I don’t think, but the character development and fatherly bonds at the film’s center had me leaving the theater with a surprising opinion of this movie. Add on top of that one of the best Hugh Jackman performances in recent memory, and you’ve got a movie that I think I actually liked a good bit, despite its flaws.