Dances with Wolves is a classic movie. In 1990, Kevin Costner starred and directed the film that went on to win 7 Academy Awards. The film was such a hit it catapulted Costner into super stardom. Unfortunately the next movie Costner chose to do was Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
About a month ago I purchased a Blu-Ray player that connects to the internet. This is awesome because Netflix streams movies. So I decided to revisit Costner’s Robin Hood. I should say that I’m a huge fan of the 1938 the Adventures of Robin Hood. Errol Flynn is amazing and the story is great. That brings me back to the 1991 travesty that is Prince of the Thieves.
Prince of Thieves has everything. It has an American playing Robin Hood and Morgan Freeman playing a Muslim Moor. This allows the film to make social commentary about religion and race. I have often wondered how 15th century England would accept a Moor. Thankfully Azeem speaks perfect English. Sadly all these politically correct public service announcements cause the film to drag for over two hours. Now it’s easy to pick on the accents. Accents don’t really bother me that much. The problem here is Costner just isn’t a believable Robin Hood. Did I mention Christian Slater is inexplicably in the movie?
As time passes Prince of Thieves does not age well. It’s too long, poorly acted, and the cast is terrible. I assume this part of the reason that Ridley Scott has his own Robin Hood movie coming out next year starting Russell Crowe. Will it be any better? I’m not sure I buy Crowe as Robin Hood either, but I’ll wait until I see the finished product. He can’t be any worse than Kevin Costner.
Dances w/Wolves is one of my favorites. I’m a Goodfellas mark, but DWW totally deserved the Best Picture Oscar imo. And yeah, good call on Robin Hood. Alan Rickman was the only redeeming quality about it, and perhaps the score.
Good point about the score and Rickman. The music is awesome.