Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves (Two-Disc Special Extended Edition)

Rating:
Summary: A childhood favorite come to life!
Review: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was my first DVD experience on my home PC and brought cinema to a new level for me. The video and sound quality were unbelievable. The only annoying aspect of this DVD is that the user needs to flip over the DVD during the middle of the movie. The movie itself was great!

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Summary: overall this is a great action book
Review: The book Robin Hood Prince of Thievs was a good book. For a person who hates reading books unless he has to for school. This book caught my attention from the beggining to the end. Robin Hood Prince of Thieves is a well illustrated book and since I read the book I now have seen the movie witch is also good. The book is full of action. I guess thats why i liked this book robin has to overcome so many obstacles and at the end of the book you really feal good for him. END

Rating:
Summary: 4 1/2
Review: Much better than the original release. This version has optimal quality in the picture and sound and has lots of bonus features. Now I can review the content of the film as this version is the best you can get! The film presented here is pretty good, well done. Im not a huge Costner fan but he does fairly well here, this story of Robin Hood did well in the theatres but skyrocketed with the help of Brian Adam's song "Everything I do, I do it for you". Its a good film with a great soundtrack and it helped sell cereal, toys and books...Good film, GREAT dvd! Must buy

Rating:
Summary: Prince of Leaves
Review: I'm rating this film so low only because of the dvd itself. Its a double sided disc that doesnt need to be flipped but the studio was so cheap they made it double sided at the time! The film itself looks average, not wonderful. Do yourself a favor...get the new extra disc version....

Rating:
Summary: A fun, exciting adventure!
Review: Swashbuckling adventure abounds in this fun version of the story of Robin Hood. Starring Kevin Costner as the title carachter and Morgan Freeman as his trusty Moorish sidekick, Azeem, this movie flat-out rules! There is a lot of fun action and adventure, with a fair share of humor, too. Also, Sean Connery has an uncredited cameo as King Richard. This is one of the greatest swashbuckling adventures ever filmed!

Rating:
Summary: Classic film; awful DVD
Review: This is an incredible movie. Great acting, great costumes, fabulous scenery. The movie itself is worth five stars. However, it was highly disappointing to have to flip the DVD half way through the film. It would have been nice to know that before purchasing... I would have spent the extra $4 bucks for a better version.

Rating:
Summary: A plea to film directors!
Review: Original Theatrical Release gets 5 stars.
The New Extended Release gets 3 stars.

I have a simple plea to film directors. PLEASE STOP TURNING OUT DIRECTOR CUTS when you release older films out on DVD.

Case in point Robin Hood : Prince of Thieves. The original cut was one of my favorite films of all time. I love this movie but now with the additional deleted scenes put back into the film my love for it has dwindle. Through out the original cut of the film there were winks and nods to certain elements in the film like the Sherrif being raised by a witch. The additional scenes that further explains the Sherrif's background turns the movie from an old time action adventure into a campy cartoon. Also there is a scene where a little girl goes to Morgan Freeman, who plays Robin's Moorish companion from the Crusades, and asks why did God paint him. In the original cut Freeman explains with some charm and a smile and the scene cuts away but in this extended edition the holier than thou fryar marches in and confronts Freeman. I do realize the extended scene was to further set up the differences between the two men and religions so to make it more meaningful when the come together to fight tyrany but I have to say in the end the dialogue is forced and it feels a bit like a lecture being acted out. The editor of the original theatrical version of this film was wise to cut that scene short.

True the clarity of the digital transfer is much better than the previous DVD release (which was the theatrical version)and its nice that I don't have to flip the disc over to watch the second half of the movie but it matters little when dealing with the horrible alterations done to this film.

I'm sure this is part of a Warner Bros marketting ploy; continually ruining their film franchises all to make a few extra dollars. Milk the buyer for all its worth. First offer a dvd of the original release that has a lousy video and audio transfer. Second offer a special edition dvd that offers better quality but also a version of the film that is not what audiences fell in love with and then lastly (hopefully) release a dvd that is the original theatrical release, with superior quality, and extras. Well I say forget them. I'm going back to my crappy old dvd. The video may look comparable to an old vhs tape but atleast its the Robin Hood I know and love to watch.

Rating:
Summary: What do you mean Costner's not really from england??!!!?
Review: The Bryan Adams theme track for this film stayed at no.1 in the UK charts for 16 long, dark weeks. A particularly low ebb for this nations collective psyche.
Despite this and despite the strong American accents, I actually find it hard to completely loathe this movie. Perhaps it's due to watching it as a rather geeky young lad, when Kevin Costner actually seemed quite cool (- as opposed to the self-important, greasy goat turd I now realise he is). Or maybe it's down to the slow-mo arrow shooting scenes, which must have been a precursor to the whole John Woo white dove phenomena prevalent today.
I expect its more likely though that this films success is in a large part down to the performance of Alan Rickman as the Sherrif of Nottingham. A true pantomime villain that, despite Kevin Costners best efforts, prevents the film from taking itself too seriously.
All in all, an enjoyable romp.


Rating:
Summary: My favorite version of this tale
Review: Yes, I know Costner doesn't sound like a Brit. I forgot about that pretty quickly as the story unfolded. The cast is engaging and works well together--particularly Costner with both Morgan Freeman as his faithful sidekick Azeem and all Robin's merry men.

I particularly loved Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham. This is one of his best roles. He's funny, tragic, depraved.

I wish the sound had been redone for the digital release, but otherwise, this film is excellent. It's one you should have in your collection so you can watch it again and again.

Rating:
Summary: A Somewhat Interesting Effort.
Review: "Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves" came out during the glory days of the Kevin Costner era. Of course many will say this was the beginning of his twilight years film-wise. After acting in Oliver Stone's masterful "JFK" Costner decided to take on a much less controversial role here, the results are half and half. Some have gone as far as to blame the movie's weak points on Costner's lame English accent, but that's not really the main flaw of the movie. "Robin Hood" suffers from weak screenwriting, some bad editing, photography choices and yes, there is some bad acting here. The movie is essentially a realistic take on the Robin Hood legend, much like "First Knight" would do with King Arthur some three, four years later. Director Kevin Reynolds tries to go for gritty tastes, gross close-ups and violent realism to make a "different" kind of movie. Sometimes it plays like a bad version of "Braveheart." The writing is thin and rushes forward without giving any characters or plot points space to breath. The best films stand the test of time even in their visual quality. Here the movie is split. There are some wonderful visuals such as the myst-enhanced scene where Robin bids farewell to his beloved or when Celtic riders storm Robin's lair and he saves a woman and her baby from a flaming tree. The arrow-shooting shots are still exciting and fun and the scenes where the forest gang build their fortress and weapons are full of detail. The flip side are sequences that are edited in a choppy, almost uncomfortable style with close-ups of characters that feel either weird or out of sync. Do we really need to be PUSHED INTO the face of the nasty old witch lady? The sequence where the sheriff tries to mary Miriam is badly done again with poor close-ups, dumb action and really poor dialogue. The entire logic of all a lot of sequence involving the villains is lame. However the movie still has some merits. The scenes among Robin and his men are the best, especially when the Arab played by Morgan Freeman helps a woman in labor give birth. Michael Kamen's score is grand and exhilarating and is still widely used. "Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves" is a curious little blunder. A movie with good intentions that doesn't quite make the mark but still has some stuff to deliver that helps it pull through.