Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves (1991)

even better than the original!

This version had many scenes that were deleted from the original film. My son is a huge movie buff and he really enjoyed the bonus features disc. July 30, 2008

Extended but not improved

This is one of my all time favorite movies, but I was disappointed by this extended version because the added scenes actually detract from the movie instead of adding to it. They also seem to be scenes that arbitrarily re-explain some of the plot points that have already been stated so that viewers not paying as much attention or who aren't the sharpest knife in the drawer can have their hand held in order to follow along.

Lastly, even though there is a whole disc of special features, neither disc has the Bryan Adams music video with him playing the piano in the woods like the VHS does! Major disappointment. July 30, 2008

Robin Hood

A great package for the price. An awesome reinvented storyline with an all-star cast! Lots of extra bonus features. Alan Rickman is twistedly charming as usual. July 29, 2008

A great return to Sherwood Forest

One of my favorite movies. Excellant soundtrack, tons of action and an epic story round this movie out into a fabulous tale. Loaded with extras as well as an additional few minutes to the film. Hook up your DTS and get prepared for a thrill ride. July 26, 2008

Nasty Agenda Driven Nonsense

The legend of Robin Hood is a myth but its based on a number of real political and historical issues. This awful mean spirited movie substitutes modern political notions for ancient ones.

The first modern agenda is the exaltation of blacks and moslems and the denigration of European whites. Simply put this is a racist movie. Morgan Freeman - an African American - is shown to be wise and civilized and the red headed Irish are portrayed as mindless savages. Not only is this offensive but it is bizarre. Islam to this day embraces the slavery of black Africans. Islam at the time of the crusades was not a place of racial harmony and enlightenment. Millions of blacks were marched across the Sahara for centuries. Most died. Those that didn't were given the most menial tasks. In Islam blacks were the least valued of slaves.

During the crusades, this movie would have you believe that an African who is also a Muslim could wander around England and be well accepted. He is shown giving a Caesarian operation to peasant's wife with his dagger. Really?

The second agenda is anti-clericism. The religious figures are depicted as impossibly evil. The medieval church had a lot of faults but these churchmen are laughably villianous. They seem modeled on Snidely Whiplash. Everything we know about the high middle ages tells us of the extreme devotion of the people to the Church. This ugly caracature of a history is agressively anti-Christian and pro-Islam.

It has been said that the all the inventions of Islam were by either Jews, Christians or Persians. The Arabs served to transport ideas from India and China toward the West, but like those other conquering people, the Mongols, they themselves made few contributions to civilization.

This propoganda movie turns all that on its head. Morgan Freeman is portrayed like a visitor from another planet with miraculous products of their advanced culture. This is just an anti-Western agenda. The creators of this film want to spread the notion that the roots of civilization were not European but Islamic.

There was of course a real political context to the Robin Hood legend. It revolved around the Norman - Saxon rift. It involved language - Germanic Saxon versus Norman French. It involved the very bad English King John and his conflict with the nobles leading to Magna Carta. It involved Richard Coeur de Lion.(This goofy movie has Richard who couldn't speak English at all speak with a Scottish accent. Ha!).

You would think that these real historical issues would provide enough material for a screenplay but instead we get a lecture on modern American race relations and the evils of Christanity. The plot seems to have been devised as an exhibit for Black History Month. July 12, 2008

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