3-in-1 Movie Review: Robin, Leviticus, and the Girls Arrive on June 19

June 16, 2026

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CREDIT: Aidan Monaghan/A24

The Death of Robin Hood

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Jodie Comer, Bill Skarsgӓrd, Murray Bartlett, Noah Jupe, Faith Delaney, Jade Croot

Director: Michael Sarnoski

Running Time: 122 Minutes

Rating: R for A Decent Amount of Blood

Release Date: June 19, 2026 (Theaters)

CREDIT: Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2026 FOCUS FEATURES LLC

Girls Like Girls

Starring: Maya da Costa, Myra Molloy, Zach Braff, Levon Hawke

Director: Hayley Kiyoko

Running Time: 95 Minutes

Rating: R for Teen Partying and Some Language

Release Date: June 19, 2026 (Theaters)

CREDIT: NEON

Leviticus

Starring: Joe Bird, Stacy Clausen, Mia Wasikowska, Jeremy Blewitt, Ewen Leslie, Davida McKenzie, Nicholas Hope, Zamira Newman, Edwina Wren

Director: Adrian Chiarella

Running Time: 88 Minutes

Rating: R for Disturbing Horror Violence and Some Sexual Content

Release Date: June 19, 2026 (Theaters)

Welcome to all of you who just can’t wait for the Summer Movie Season! And also welcome to those of you who absolutely can’t resist the lure of the multiplex no matter what time of the year it is. If you enjoy reading about any and all new releases, well you’re in luck, because this is one of those times when I review more than one movie in a single post. They’re all set to debut in theaters on June 19, and their names are The Death of Robin Hood, Girls Like Girls, and Leviticus. They all promise to provide very different tones from each other, but they also all have one thing in common: none of them is Toy Story 5.

The Death of Robin Hood hands off the famous outlaw’s bow and arrow to Hugh Jackman, with Pig auteur Michael Sarnoski writing and directing. This is one of those revisionist takes that strips away the most recognizable elements of a very famous character, which is to say that this Robin doesn’t do a whole lot of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. So what does he do instead? Honestly, not much. This is certainly a movie that lives up to its title, with Robin essentially just lying around and making amends until he expires. In the course of his demise, he’s tended to by a nun (Jodie Comer) and kind of befriends a leper (Murray Bartlett). So it’s not totally event-less, but I still ultimately came to the conclusion that it took away the most interesting part of the character and didn’t really replace it with anything else interesting.

Girls Like Girls similarly lives up to the promise of its title, but in this case employing a strategy that’s presumably much safer for pleasing its target audience. It’s the directorial debut of singer-songwriter Hayley Kiyoko, based on her novel of the same name that was in turn based on her song of the same name. It follows the teenage Coley (Maya da Costa) in 2006 as she moves in with her dad (Zach Braff) following the death of her mom and finds herself spectacularly smitten with her new friend Sonya (Myra Molloy). You get the sense that this is the first time that Coley has ever felt this deeply for a girl, or anybody at all really. That’s the key to this movie’s power: the bigness of the feelings are contagious. We’ve all endured the struggles of uncertain love (no matter how queer or not queer), and we’re all looking for the support that Coley’s looking for promising that it’s all going to be okay.

We’ve actually got one more queer love story on the docket, although Leviticus doesn’t exactly offer much in the way of anything resembling a happy promise. Instead, this Australia-set supernatural chiller finds teenage boys Naim (Joe Bird) and Ryan (Stacy Clausen) spooked by an entity threatening to kill them after an encounter with a “Deliverance Healer” (Nicholas Hope), which is essentially the most evil case of “pray the gay away” that you can imagine. The entity takes the form of the person you’re most romantically obsessed with, so Naim and Ryan are screwed by any attempts at solidarity. Comparisons to It Follows are inevitable, but the despair I clocked has more to do with the geographical dispersion of Down Under. Truly, this is a nightmare worthy of the Outback.

Grades:
The Death of Robin Hood: 2.5 out of 5 Arrows
Girls Like Girls: 3.5 out of 5 AIM Messages
Leviticus: 3.5 out of 5 Doppelgangers

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Damsel’ is a Gonzo Western With an Important Message on Its Mind

June 21, 2018

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CREDIT: Magnolia Pictures

This review was originally posted on News Cult in June 2018.

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Mia Wasikowska, David Zellner, Nathan Zellner, Joseph Billingiere, Robert Forster

Directors: David Zellner and Nathan Zellner

Running Time: 113 Minutes

Rating: R for Sharpshooting Violence and Occasional Graphic Nudity, Often Mixed Together

Release Date: June 22, 2018 (Limited)

I would call Damsel a revisionist Western, except that the Western genre is not really popular enough anymore to really need revising. Nevertheless, co-directing brothers David and Nathan Zellner have plenty of revising on their minds, though their ideas do not apply exclusively to frontier America. Ultimately, I don’t how else to classify it, so let’s stick with “revisionist Western” and maybe throw in a “wacky” and “iconoclastic” in there for good measure.

Robert Pattinson strolls merrily into town as Samuel Alabaster, a man out of place and out of time. His stomach does not agree with the saloon he walks into (or any saloon really), his spirit is more poetic than cowboy, and his vocabulary is a bit too 21st Century, though it does not really fit in any era. Actually, none of the characters particularly speak they are from any recognizable time in American history. The Zellners have crafted a fantasy world that might be too bizarre for some audiences, but it is just delightful to my tastes, and Pattinson subsumes himself into this environment unforgettably.

There is one way that Samuel fits into the Wild West mold, and that is his instinct to rescue the damsel in distress. His beloved Penelope (Mia Wasikowska) has been kidnapped, and he is on his way to free her and make her his wife. But eventually it becomes clear that Samuel may not have the most trustworthy of perspectives and that Damsel is actually an indictment of a certain strain of toxic, entitled masculinity that is insidious in today’s society. It makes me wonder if willful misinterpretation regarding attempted romantic coercion was just as much of a problem hundreds of years ago as it is today. It certainly seems possible, as miscommunication has been causing conflicts throughout human history. Those struggles are not always as strange as the one portrayed in Damsel, but the stranger the example, the more memorable the movie.

Damsel is Recommended If You Like: Irreverent Westerns like Django Unchained, but with a defiantly feminist twist

Grade: 4 out of 5 Outhouse Explosions