Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Notes-The Legend Of Robin Hood Notes-Creating 12th Century England Teaser Trailer Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1991
Running Time	143:15
RSDL / Flipper	FLIPPER (74:34)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Kevin Reynolds
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Kevin Costner Morgan Freeman Christian Slater Alan Rickman Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$34.95	Music	Michael Kamen

Video (NTSC)		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.66:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Portuguese Spanish English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    I doubt there are any out there who are not familiar with the story of Robin Hood, but there have been a few alterations and additions for Prince Of Thieves, most notably in Robin's travelling companion Azeem (Morgan Freeman). Regardless of any changes from the traditional, and the obvious difficulty of having a Robin Hood who speaks in an American accent that no-one else seems to notice, this movie works extremely well. It is a big swash-buckling tale in the style of many of the older Hollywood films. There is no CGI here, or any sign of high-speed camera work, or fight scenes strung up on wires. Instead, there are good old-fashioned stunts, and Real Men going hand to hand with real(ish) swords.

    This film has little in the way of characterisation - Robin is the Good Guy: he is forgiving, kind, tolerant, and learns from his mistakes. On the other hand the Sheriff of Nottingham is the Bad Guy: always wearing black, and trying to gain power by any means possible. Supporting characters are even less fleshed out - Robin loves Marian (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) because she is Beautiful, and Azeem stays with Robin because he is Noble. Despite this, the charisma of the actors (even Kevin Costner) is sufficient that the audience still cares what happens to them. In the end, Prince Of Thieves is a great adventure movie that is fun to watch and provides a good night's entertainment.

    The final thing that needs to be mentioned in connection with Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is the single that was written for the movie by Bryan Adams - (Everything I Do) I Do It For You. This was an extremely successful song in 1991, lasting well over 20 weeks in the number one position - however the movie makers were unhappy with it and almost refused to put the song in the movie at all. An interesting point to note is that while the VHS release of Robin Hood contains the music video for this song at the conclusion of the movie, the DVD does not.

Video

    This transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.66:1, not 1.85:1 as stated on the packaging, and is not 16x9 enhanced again despite what the packaging says. It was somewhat of a surprise to me to learn that, according to the IMDB at least, the original aspect ratio for Robin Hood was 1.85:1 - if any movie was deserving of the full widescreen treatment it is this. Given the original aspect ratio, the formatting we have of 1.66:1 is not such an egregious error.

    Given the age of this transfer, it is not surprising to find that it is not at all sharp, and is severely lacking in detail. In most cases, any fine detail is completely lost in the murk. The transfer is not helped by the presence of an enormous amount of grain. Beginning from the opening logos, grain is a constant problem throughout the movie; it is particularly noticeable almost any time a portion of sky is visible in the shot, and during most of the establishing shots, such as that of Nottingham Castle at 20:07. Shadow detail is likewise appalling, with almost anything that falls under the slightest amount of shade becoming all but invisible. This causes major problems, as a good portion of the movie takes place at night, or in the bowels of castles - scenes in which the vast majority of the screen is black, with a murky blur representing the actors, are common. As a small positive, I did not notice any low-level noise in the transfer.

    Colours, while certainly not brilliant, fared somewhat better than some other aspects of the transfer. Most appear faithfully represented, with the English forest being nicely green, while indoor settings are harshly beautiful thanks to the outstanding work of Director of Photography Doug Milsome.

    As with colours, compression artefacts fared quite well in this transfer, with some minor background pixelisation during scenes of high grain being the only artefacts present. In a movie full of swords and arrows, aliasing is almost noticeably absent, although this is most likely due to the extreme softness of the image. The only really noticeable instances are on the opening and closing titles, on a roof at 35:04, and on a sword at 56:59. The entire transfer is afflicted with quite bad telecine wobble. It is particularly noticeable during the opening and closing credits (and does not help with the aliasing problems therein), but at any time the camera is steady, a wobble can be perceived. This transfer displays just about the entire range of film artefacts, in almost any imaginable shape, in both black and white. There are simply too many occurrences of quite noticeable artefacts to list, and the entire transfer is covered with minor artefacts.

    The subtitles on this disc are quite accurate. While a few words are left out, none are essential to the flow of the dialogue.

    This is a Flipper disc, with side one finishing very close to half way through, at 74:34. One minor advantage our disc has over the R1 is the placement of a helpful "flip-me-now" symbol at the conclusion of side one. Side two launches immediately into the movie, so continuity is preserved as much as possible for a flipper.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is only a single audio track present on this disc, being the original English dialogue in Dolby Digital 2.0, surround encoded at the normal bitrate of 192Kbps.

    Dialogue was usually clear and easy to understand. On the odd occasion, a mumbled word slips by, but for the most part there are no problems in this regard.

    Audio sync is likewise never a problem. All dialogue is in sync, as are all sound effects.

    The score for Robin Hood is provided by Michael Kamen (of Metallica: S&M fame), and does its job admirably. There is only one real downside, and that is the frequency with which that song from Bryan Adams is worked into the score. Neither Adams or Kaman are to blame for this (how were they to know it would break world-wide records for stays at number 1?), but the fact that the song is so well known, and so recognisable, leads to a few moments of really noticing the score, which should not happen.

    For a 2.0 surround effort the surrounds are quite respectably used, backing the score to a good extent, and even taking part in some directional sound effects, such as voice reverb at 75:59, and a few instances of arrow shots, and horses running past camera. Certainly this does not stand in for a full 5.1 mix, but until this film gets the treatment it deserves, this surround mix will suffice.

    The subwoofer received quite a large of amount of re-directed bass, and was very effective in backing up the bigger effects in the movie.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

The Legend Of Robin Hood

Creating 12th-Century England

Theatrical Trailer (2:04)

Teaser Trailer (1:19)

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on:

• Robin Hood In The Movies - 25 pages of text detailing the history of Robin Hood movies.
• Why Tell The Story Again - 9 pages of text explaining what Prince Of Thieves attempted to bring to the legend.
• Cast & Crew biographies.
• Recommendations - the "If you enjoyed this movie, then try..." variety.
• French Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack.
• Spanish Subtitles

• Portuguese subtitles

    The video quality is terrible, being pretty much equivalent to VHS quality for most of the presentation.

    The audio is quite good given the restrictions of a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack, but is still crying out to be remastered in full 5.1 discrete sound.

    There are almost no extras on this disc. Those that are present are of low quality, and are not worth purchasing for.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall