Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves *** (1991, Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Alan Rickman, Christian Slater) – Classic Movie Review 1793

Kevin Reynolds directs this ambitious, enormously popular, big-budget 1991 Robin Hood movie plainly, unimaginatively and hesitantly, struggling to get the pace and mood right. A hefty re-edit, with about 20 minutes shorn from the 143-minute running time would improve it loads. The DVD extended edition is even more bloated at 155 minutes. Yet on a then high cost of $48million, it grossed over $390million worldwide.

They are all good actors, but miscast Americans Kevin Costner (Robin of Locksley), Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (as the Lady Marian Dubois) and Christian Slater (Will Scarlett) get caught with their Lincoln green around their ankles in this hugely popular but plodding version of the great British folk tale that takes too long to get to the meat of the story and the exciting action. Although, oddly, that was also the slight failing of the first great Robin Hood movie, the 1922 silent classic with Douglas Fairbanks Sr.

Both films start abroad in the Holy Land during the Crusades. In this one, after being captured by Turks, Robin and the Moor Azeem (Morgan Freeman) escape back to England, where Robin’s father has been murdered by the Sheriff of Nottingham and Azeem vows to remain until he repays Robin for saving his life.

Costner was at the height of his popularity at the time, helping to ensure the movie’s success. He’s fine as a dashing, handsome action hero, but he’s just not right as Robin Hood. Costner promptly won the 1992 Razzie Award as Worst Actor. But luckily, with the Americans struggling, true Brit Alan Rickman singlehandedly saves the day as the Sheriff George of Nottingham, in a hilariously over-the-top performance that would fit nicely into a Monty Python film. It’s a good role and he’s great in it.

The rowdy gang of Merry Men are excellent comic relief to Costner’s unconventional Hood and the costly British-based production looks very handsome indeed, with lovely set designs (John Graysmark) and costumes (John Bloomfield was Bafta nominated). But, Rickman apart, the film is most memorable for Bryan Adams’s record-breaking chart-topper ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It for You’. Adams was Oscar and Golden Globe nominated for Best Original Song and has an uncredited cameo as The Balladeer. Rickman was rewarded with the 1992 Bafta for Best Supporting Actor.

There’s a very dark-toned start to the movie in the Holy Land that may be upsetting to children. This prologue is certainly unnecessary to the main story and mostly merely helps to over-extend the running time. Geraldine McEwan (as the witch Mortianna), Michael McShane (Friar Tuck), Michael Wincott (a good Guy of Gisborne), Nick Brimble (Little John), Daniel Peacock (Bull), Harold Innocent (Bishop of Hereford) and Jack Wild (Much the Miller’s Son) are also in the cast, many of them actually hailing from the UK where the film is set and is mostly made.

Brian Blessed plays Robin’s father Lord Locksley, which Connery turned down as he felt he had been playing too many fathers then. [Spoiler alert} Instead Connery has a surprise climactic cameo as King Richard, which critics were forbidden to mention back in 1992.

Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood with an equally miscast Russell Crowe followed in 2010. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) with Errol Flynn remains the best version. Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves was parodied, inevitably and quite daftly, by Mel Brooks in his 1993 spoof Robin Hood, Men in Tights, where Cary Elwes made an impressive Robin.

Bafta-winning actress Geraldine McEwan died at 82 on January 30 2015 after treatment for a stroke. She won the Bafta for her performance in the TV serial Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1990). From 2004 to 2009 she appeared as Miss Marple, the Agatha Christie sleuth, for the series Marple.

Alan Rickman died on 14 January 2016 at the age of 69. Famous for roles in Harry Potter as Professor Snape and Love Actually, he shot to stardom in 1988 as Hans Gruber in Die Hard and as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, and won BAFTA, Golden Globe, Emmy and Screen Actors Guild awards in a glittering career that began in the late 1970s.

Rickman’s other film roles include Jamie in Truly, Madly, Deeply, Colonel Brandon in Ang Lee’s 1995 film Sense and Sensibility, P. L. O’Hara in An Awfully Big Adventure and Judge Turpin in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1793

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