Blu-Ray Review:

Robin Hood Prince of Thieves Extended Cut

By Jason Gillard

*Screenshots are not from the Blu-Ray source.

Movie

Current Rottentomatoes.com Score - 58% Fresh: 14 Rotten:10

This movie is about Robin's adventures after his return from the Crusades. With an indebted Moor by his side, Robin sets out to avenge his father's death and to save the peasants of Nottingham from their cunning, crafty sheriff.

It was 1991 when this film came out and mostly what I remember was that the song from the movie was so popular.  It was Bryan Adams "Everything I do, I do it for you".  For the life of me I didn't remember too much about the actual film.  So sitting down to watch Kevin Costner in this film I approached it with caution.  I knew good actors were in the film like Morgan Freeman and Alan Rickman, but like I said I didn't remember much about it.  After watching the film I have to say it still hold up pretty well after all these years.  It may not be perfect but it's a great adventure.  They took away the green leotards and replaced it with a more up to date imagining of Robin Hood.  I really thought Morgan Freeman did a good job in this film.  He plays a saint, a sinner and a mysterious guy all rolled into one.  Alan Rickman was also fantastic and the Sheriff of Nottingham.  He does evil really well.  Overall it's a fun adventure that should be in your collection.

8 out of 10

Video

Robin Hood arrives on Blu-ray looking quite soft.  There isn't that fine detail that I have seen in other catalogue releases.  Most likely this is a product of the original film stock.  From reading about it, this is pretty much what it looked like during its theatrical run.  The colour palette for this film is quite dull.  Most of the scenes have darker colours such as browns and greys so nothing really stands out here.  Some of the scenes of Sherwood Forest look nice but nothing outstanding.  Skin tones come across looking quite natural which is a plus.  The black levels in this film are good for the most part.  Overall I would say the transfer is a step up from the DVD but not by much and I think most of the softness in the film is a product of the source material and not of the transfer.

7 out of 10

Audio

I wish I had better things to say about the audio but unfortunately I don't.  Audio tends to be a little bit of a mixed bag.  Warner has given us a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track but, I am not sure it helps here. Dialogue seems to be inconsistent.  In some scenes the dialogue comes across with great clarity and in others I am reaching for the remote to rewind to hear what they said.  One plus that I did notice was that of the LFE channel.  It definitely seemed to be pretty active adding heavy bass to the scenes that needed it.  The rear speakers were also quite busy.  Overall it's a good attempt but I am left wondering whether it could have sounded better with more tweaking.

7.5 out of 10

Extras

Here is what you get in the way of extras:

Audio Commentary - Kevin Reynolds and actor Kevin Costner
Audio Commentary - Morgan Freeman, Christian Slater, John Watson and Pen Densham.
The Man, The Myth, The Legend
One-On-One with the Cast
Isolated Score
Live Bryan Adams Performance
Trailers and TV Spots

First of all, since not much attention was given to the video and the audio I didn't have high hopes for the extras.  All the extras were in SD.  For those of you who have read my other reviews you would know that is a big pet peeve for me.  So what can I recommend...well not much really.  I am a big fan of soundtracks and I enjoyed the Isolated Score feature.  It's a really nice theme that plays throughout and it's a good way to get an appreciation for the music, which I think a lot of us forget when we watch a film.  The One-On-One with the cast is OK, but not really that interesting.  Out of the two commentaries my favorite would have been the second one with Morgan Freeman.  It's not as technically detailed as the first one, but a lot more fun.  There really wasn't much here I could recommend.

5 out of 10

Overall

Overall I thought the movie was fun, but I was disappointed in pretty much everything else.  I got this feeling that it was rushed!  So I can only recommend this to the die hard Robin Hood fan, who will find it an upgrade to the DVD but not by much.

6 out of 10