TV film review: Beyond Sherwood Forest (2009), directed by Peter DeLuise

Mr T’s summary of Beyond Sherwood Forest: “Man, that was a fucking awful movie!”

He should know, he managed to watch it. I was quickly more intrigued by my laptop, looking up occasionally, such as when the phrase “Guy of Gisborne” was uttered. Umm, he wasn’t Richard Armitage, let’s put it that way.

I can’t say either of us were disappointed, as neither had our hopes up. Rather, our fears were confirmed. There were magic portals in the woods, girls that turned into dragons, CGI lions … It was like The New Adventures of Robin Hood but with slightly higher production values and more suitable costumes. There was a monastery that didn’t look it, it looked like a normal stone house, except not normal for 12th century England. Nottingham Castle also looked a bit too fancy for the time period.

Wishing they weren’t: Robin Dunne as Robin Hood, Erica Durance as Maid Marian, Mark Gibbon as Little John, Richard de Klerk as Will Scarlet, Bill Dow as Friar Tuck and Brent Stait as Guy of Gisborne.

Robin reminded me of Jonas Armstrong once, as it happened. For the most part, when I was paying attention, I was cringing over the bad English accents.

To sum it up, as a Robin Hood story, it was laughable. As a generic fantasy movie, it was mediocre. It was to the point where Mr T cursed our principles – if we weren’t watching it on principle, we could’ve changed channel and abandoned it! My comment to him was “Is this a good movie? A clue: no!” Better or worse than BBC’s Robin Hood? Umm. Definitely worse. At least the BBC series had some redeeming qualities, and their lion (shabby and old as it was), well, at least it was a real lion, not an unconvincing CGI mess.

1 out of 5 monsters.