Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves-Hollywood Knows Thieves
Robin Hood staring Kevin Costner as what else, Robin Hood is one of those films you know will be remade until the sun swallows the earth or the Chinese take over the world, maybe even after. If you’ve somehow missed the story, its about a rouge who steals from the rich and corrupt and gives to the poor. I’m sure that every now and then some evil group of a-hole’s decide that the sheep are getting too pissed off and out comes Robin Hood as a sort of cathartic device. Historically Robin Hood was portrayed as BOTH a nobleman and a poor nobody. Guess which way Hollywood went on that one? Yeah, nobleman of course. Either way you go, you need a nobleman to save your skin you stupid animal. Reading too much into it? Yeah, you would think that if you were a sheep...
So in this incarnation of Robin Hood, good old Robin is a nobleman whose been screwed over. Robin’s father has been murdered by the Sheriff of Nottingham. So its sort of Robin Hood meets Die Hard, you know this time its personal, etc. There is some nonsense with preserving the right of succession, so important to the big-budget Hollywood film crowd, but I won’t bother with this aspect of the film.
The script is undoubtedly weak, but it could be worse. The plot, while recycled does move along and keeps you from opening up your wrist most of the time. The film’s succeeds for many of the standard reasons: lots of stars as we have Costner, Morgan Freeman, Alan Rickman, Sean Connery, and the walking, talking clone of Jack Nicoholson, minus the talent and charisma a.k.a. Christian Slater. Second, is the all important name recognition. Hollywood loves films that are based on something we’ve heard of before. Seriously, I am surprised we haven’t seen Coco Puffs the Movies or I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter the Mini-Series or Volvo the Epic. Why not? Regardless, they love it if you already know it. The end result of combining these two factors is lots of money, somewhere in the ballpark of $400 million in ticket sales and that’s on a budget of around $40- $50 million. Nice. Until we say, “no you lazy bastards give us something new,” we will keep getting more stories that we already know.
On the plus side there are some fun effect shots with arrows, which are truthfully the highlight of the film, and some good acting performances from Rickman and Freeman. Costner has seen better acting days and Slater should only be in spoofs.
The producers and studio teamed up to make Robin Hood for the same reasons they keep remaking Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, War of the Worlds, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Star Trek, Jurassic Park, James Bond, Indiana Jones, Mission Impossible, Planet of the Apes, Hercules, Aladdin and on and on and on, because we don’t expect better. Some of those previously mentioned works are great, but so is variety and until we demand it, we are just going to keep getting leukemia producing hot dogs and not the real stuff.
Story C- (Been there, done that. First incarnation of Robin Hood in film, was turn of the century people.)
Acting C
Visuals C+ (There are a few cool moments with the arrows.)
Originality/Innovation D
Enjoyability Grade C-
Home Theater/HD Factor B-
Overall Grade C- (by the skin of its teeth. Yes, films have teeth with skin on them.)
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