Plot: What’s it about?
If you were alive in 1991, odds are you heard “Everything I Do, I Do It For You” about 9,000 times. But Costner, aside from starring in two of the year’s highest-grossing movies (this and JFK), he picked up his Academy Award for Best Director and Best Picture for Dances With Wolves in March of that year. Not a shabby 12 months. Granted, though, his career has been a slow decline ever since. But we’ll not look into the past and instead concentrate on this umpteenth remake of Robin and his merry men. Or not so merry men, as the case may be. A far cry from The adventures of Robin Hood, this was a much darker adaption of the popular folk hero. The movie starts out as he’s about to be executed and doesn’t really look up from there. Is it a bad movie? Not exactly. It’s entertaining, but it was obviously aimed at the family market and I think that a lot of the viewers found it a bit too dark that they would want to take the kiddies to.
As mentioned, the film starts out in a dark dungeon in which Robin (Kevin Costner) is watching people getting their hands chopped off for stealing bread. He then stages an escape and takes a Moor (Morgan Freeman) with him. The Moor has vowed to stay with him until he has saved his life, and so it goes. Robin is shocked to learn that his father and castle have been destroyed by the vicious Sheriff of Nottingham (Alan Rickman) and his crew. Now on a side note, this part is probably the best of Rickman’s career. His sly, seething “cat ate the canary” smile are part of what made this movie fairly enjoyable. Even better than his performance in Die Hard, he must have had a lot of fun with his role here…and it shows. Robin starts to accumulate his “band of merry men”, though they’re more social misfits, and the rest of the film is Robin trying to save Maid Marian (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). Though it doesn’t seem like the two are really in love, it seems that they’re only interested in each other as that’s how the story is supposed to go. Make sense?
Though it’s easy to pick apart a film, I still found myself laughing and becoming involved in the movie. While it won’t (and hasn’t) gone down as one of the better films, it was a big-budget studio “event” film (boy, I’m glad they don’t do those anymore)! The cast is great and for those who think they’re going to see an updated version of the 1938 classic, The adventures of Robin Hood might not be too happy. It’s been a while since this one was revisited by any studio and given that (as of this writing), this is the film’s 35th anniversary – I suppose they saw fit to cast this into the 4K realm.
Video: How does it look?
I think the last tie I saw this was when it came out on DVD and, well, we’ve had a few generations of discs since then. That said, the old, grainy look is gone and it’s been replaced with a gorgeous-looking 1.85:1 anamorphic image. Though a giant step up, the image does have its flaws from time to time. During several of the outdoor shots, there seems to be a little edge enhancement that caught my eye. As the movie is mostly dark, some of the nighttime shots do have some artifacting associated with them as well. That being said, the majority of the film looks great and it’s yet another testament to the benefit of new digital transfers. The HEVC 4K image is an uptick in picture quality, to be sure – but it’s just short of being amazing.
Audio: How does it sound?
Robin Hood sounds great as the original six channel mix is even more appealing in DTS HD Master Audio. That’s right, folks we get to hear Kevin Costner’s California accent in all its glory. Still, the mix isn’t quite as active as you might think. For the majority of the movie, the front spectrum takes control, only allowing the surrounds and LFE to kick in at key times. This isn’t bad, however, as the mix is substantially better than the previous DVD release. Dialog is clean and natural, even considering that Costner’s on again/off again British accent is what needed the work. As with the video, this is another reason to get this set.
Supplements: What are the extras?
I don’t know what’s made the leap from Warner’s disc to here, but nevertheless – everything that’s on the disc can be found below.
- Audio commentary – The two are fairly talkative throughout and though not a whole lot of new information is gathered, it’s a relatively fun track from two of the main players involved in the movie.
- Audio commentary – The second track has Morgan Freeman, Christian Slater and Producers John Watson and Pen Densham. This is a little more dull in that there’s too many people involved. I guess a lot of egos were involved! The more entertaining track is with Coster/Reynolds but fans should be happy that there’s two to choose from.
- Here We Are Kings: Making Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves – A multi-part documentary featuring interviews with Densham, Watson, director of photography Douglas Milsome, editor Peter Boyle, costume designer John Bloomfield and many more members of the creative team
- Robin Hood: The Myth, the Man, the Movie – An archival 1991 documentary hosted by Pierce Brosnan
- One-on-One with the Cast – Archival 1991 interviews with Costner, Freeman, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Slater and Alan Rickman
- Music Video – Bryan Adams “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” performance at Slane Castle, Ireland
- Theatrical trailer
The Bottom Line
1991 was “Peak Costner” and with good reason. He had it all. The movie left a bit to be desired, but gave us another great Alan Rickman performance (he’s not quite as good as he is in Die Hard, but close) as well as a retelling of a classic tale. Arrow’s disc gets this disc the 4K treatment looking and sounding the best it ever has.
