Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) review
Where do you start with reviewing a film about a possibly mythical character who might not actually have existed?
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For what it’s worth, I believe Kevin Costner did indeed exist. Living his life in the time of legend, the 1990s. Taking millions from the rich movie studio execs and giving to the poor…audiences who had the misfortune of watching his films.
Now, whilst that’s the prevailing opinion of Kevin Costner it’s not one that I share. He’s starred in some of my favourite films. Waterworld, Tin Cup and Field of Dreams. Any film where he plays a sport or has gills and I’m sold.
He also featured in my mum’s favourite soundtrack to a film I’m not even sure she ever saw, ‘The Bodyguard’ which starred the late Whitney Houston. May she rest in peace.
But enough about my dead mother and her taste for caterwauling ballads and on to the Prince of Thieves.
Some white men go overseas to let the locals know how they’ve got religion all wrong and how it all will be better if they’d just shut up and listen to them for a minute.
One of these errand boys is Robin of Locksley. A son of a lord or a nobleman or something, portrayed somewhat quietly by Brian Blessed. Robin is currently living it up abroad with long hair and a big beard and when his hosts demand he pay for his room and board with his right hand he decides he’s had enough of this prisoner of war life and decides it’s time to head on home. One of the former enemy, Moor-gan, is in tow as Rob saved his life on his way out of the jail and he wants a chance to do the same. I guess there was no such thing as a Thank You card back then.
Rob gets home and quickly finds out that his dear old dad has been strung up by Hans Gruber in his frankly too sparsely furnished castle to be called comfortable for reasons which weren’t entirely clear to me. Perhaps Sheriff Gruber had a headache and knew it was only a matter of time until he started bawling his way through he countryside. Either way, Rob is incensed. Or is he. He’s cracking jokes and hitting on a woman while his dad’s body is still swinging.
So now Rob, Moor-gan and a guy who had his has eyes taken out by Gruber are on the run. Oddly, Duncan the Eyeless now sports a blindfold. Perhaps he wanted to make doubly sure he didn’t have to see Christian Slater’s smug face which everyone else sees when Rob bumps into the Merry Men. Remember that time Christian Slater was going to be the next big thing? I do. It was precisely the period between the beginning of True Romance and the end of True Romance.
After Rob and the leader of ‘this rabble’ compare sticks, a brave endeavour when you’re called Little John, the two groups assemble for a campfire meal and a gossip. Little Lord Locksley rubs his privileged multicultural background in one of the Middle East’s finest prisons in everyone’s faces as he insists the camp’s animal hide of wine not skip his BFF and takes umbrage at one of the rabble calling the Moor a savage. Or a barbarian. Or a similar slur that was probably a name for one of the black Gladiators.
Rob decides enough is enough. This former have/have-not wants to be a have again. And he’ll have not one man stand his way. It’s time to wage guerrilla war on Gruber and his crack team of European swordsmen. Sherwood style. Cue a training montage.
Rob and the boys ambush some rich folk travelling through the forest and distribute the takings to the local peasants. Thus making them complicit in his crimes and facing charges of Receiving Stolen Goods at the very least. At least it shows that Nottingham being a crime-ridden shit hole is nothing new.
It’s during one of these ambushes that the Merry Men add to their number by way of perennially drunk monk Friar Tuck. Let’s just hope he doesn’t try to introduce himself to Maid Marian. That’s a slap in the face just waiting to happen. Marian herself is soon ambushed, but turns the tables on the ambushers and demands to be taken to Rob. Who is close by swimming at the bottom of a waterfall. Naked. In the east Midlands. Which is a genius plan really. What lawman is going to want to tackle a soaped up outlaw. Even one as dreamy as Kevin Costner.
So now Rob has got Marian at the camp he shows her his stolen riches and tells her now she knows where the camp is she can’t leave (the Thunderbirds never had that trouble, but then Rob had never seen that; the BBC wouldn’t be invented for another few hundred years).
Never has a woman being held against her will seemed so romantic. She does seem rather taken with what they’ve done with the place. Everything is constructed from leaves and wood. It’s all very Center Parcs. There’s leaf buildings, leaf traps, leaf hidey holes. There are even leaf bicycles available for rental at the leaf customer services desk. Maybe that’s why Marian doesn’t blow her leaf rape whistle.
After Moor-gan helps deliver Mrs Little’s baby everyone accepts him. Proving that the eradication of racism is only one good deed per ethnic person away. Marion soon departs to get word of Gruber’s treachery to the King. And cancel her newspapers. Instead she finds herself locked in a castle by the villain whom she is now set to marry. Where’s an Italian plumber when you need one?
Gruber shows up fashionably late to the birth with some Celt mercenaries who proceed to destroy the wood bridges and leaf bungalows with fiery arrows and the general behaviour that is associated with Scottish people. Sheriff Hans manages to capture some of Robby’s boys, amongst them Will Scarlett.
But then who should turn up back at Camp Robin but Will Scarlett himself. Is he a traitor or is he there to help Rob get his men back and rescue Maid Marian from the awful prospect of a lifetime living indoors instead of a muddy hut where running water isn’t a feature but more of a foundation issue.
After a nail biting few seconds of wondering where his loyalties lie Will Scarlett removes all tension from this long foreshadowed twist by taking a quick exposition dump. Pass the leaf toilet paper. Oh, and he’s Robin’s brother. In a completely un-foreshadowed twist.
Gruber is marrying Maid Marian and his wedding present to her is the hanging of some less than merry men. Embarrassingly, a distant aunt also got her the same gift but Marion didn’t let on and quietly checked the bag for the receipt.
With barely time to iron his leaf tuxedo our Rob heads off to the wedding cum public execution with his plus five to save the day. Once there the masterplan, which involves some stones and a twig, falls to pieces is recaptured by Gruber’s men and tied to the conveniently placed barrel that was somehow going to be used to destroy the gallows. Perhaps the barrel had woodworm and in a few months would have rendered the gallows a hazard.
The executioner kicks the first stool and it’s Little John’s son! His neck does not break at the fall, suggesting the executioner hadn’t done his noose maths, and struggles for just enough time to ramp up the dramatic tension sufficiently. Bob springs into action and an arrow or too later the boy is saved and a bit of a free-for-all has broken out for the buffet. The meat has all turned so the executioner decides to take a fresh slice of Scarlett when Bob shoots another flaming arrow and rescues his brother of 8 minutes.
Gruber having seen all this and eager to get away to the honeymoon scarpers with Marion only to have Bobert interrupt before they’d even got to the, ‘if anyone knows of any reason these two should not be joined together bit’. Ensuring a bride will always remember her wedding day Bobbins kills her would be husband and whisks her back to the forest to wed her himself. Entirely unaware that rebound relationships rarely last.
James Bond then interrupts the wedding so he can give his blessing. Which no-one asked for.
