Since I’m on the topic of sword and sorcery movies, I thought I’d do a couple of posts on Robin Hood films too.:)
Like the Arthurian Legends, there’s been over the decades so much novelization and entertainment media adaptations of the character that every retelling could be as viable as another, just so long as one didn’t completely turn the general character dispositions on their heads: like I dunno, turn Robin into a crossbow instead of a longbow man.
Of the films regarding Robin of Locksley, the most well-known one in semi-recent years is Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. This was Kevin Costner’s baby and pet project, and he’d been riding on the goodwill after his Oscar-nominated performance as John Dunbar in Dances with Wolves (loved the film, especially the four hour director’s cut. May do a blog entry next time).
I remembered the newspapers terrifically assailing Costner for his hokey Brit accent and that Costner is well, just nearly as naturally wooden as Keanu Reeves. But the film was more good than bad, and largely because his supporting cast were all having a rollicking ball of time making this film.
There was Morgan Freeman as Robin’s Moorish and sensible companion, and who seemed to heave a heavy sigh every time Costner’s Robin brought out another harebrained scheme. And Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio whom we don’t see very often in films anymore as the feisty Maid Marian with a mean crotch kick.
The film’s best remembered though for Alan Rickman’s Sheriff of Nottingham (above). He somehow simultaneously channeled the best and funniest parts of being a megalomanical villain, and had all the best lines in the movie.
Released at the same time was a smaller-scaled Robin Hood film starring a bonafide Brit actor Patrick Bergin in the title role, and Uma Thurman opposite him as Marian. Thurman was still pretty fresh out from her breakout and eye-opening role as the impressionable Cecile de Volanges in Dangerous Liaisons.
Bergin’s Robin Hood was made on a more modest budget than Prince of Thieves and looked it too. The production was originally made as a TV movie but was screened in theatres here. Bergin was a far better actor than Costner in this role, and I remembered the production sets had an authentic, unsanitized and grim look.
As both films were released at about the same time, comparisons were inevitable. I enjoyed Prince of Thieves as a pop-corn flick then, and still (funnily) enjoy it today and largely because of Rickman’s Sheriff. Robin Hood was more a serious character study of the hero, but I never picked up the DVD for it – so my recollection of impressions is getting all foggy 18 years after seeing it on the big screen.
Still, Prince of Thieves gets 
from me.
Continued in the next post.:)
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