Dodgy history and dodgier accents, but Kevin Costner's medieval romp still has some magic – and shouldn't be judged on the weakness of its imitators
Most things about Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves are terrible. Kevin Costner's and Christian Slater's attempts at English accents: terrible. Bryan Adam's theme song which refused to go away during the summer of 1991 and can conjure mass feelings of nausea to this very day: terrible. Seeing Costner's naked arse as he gets washed in a waterfall: terrible. But I've still probably watched it more than any other film and will (in true Robin Hood spirit) defend it until my dying breath.
I was a pretty sickly child, and when I was off school I'd always put it on. The stupid accents, shoe-horned in Moorish sidekick (played by Morgan Freeman) and romantiscied outlaw life were like a security blanket as I watched it while off my head on Calpol SixPlus. Yes, it's ridiculous and cliched, but it's entertaining, and there are some – OK, there's one – genuinely great performance. Alan Rickman managed to polish one of 90s cinema's biggest turds when he put in a brilliant turn as the ruthless Sheriff of Nottingham, who attempts to usurp King John while being held back by his workforce of incompetent jokers and a witch.
Defending the film has never been easy. Even as a 13-year-old, it was a hard sell. My peers would be watching their brothers' copy of Terminator 2 or Silence of the Lambs and I'd be banging on about a film set during the Crusades, which featured people who lived in trees near Mansfield. When I went to university, things got really uncomfortable. I'd signed up for a European film course and remember talking to some fellow students after watching The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. As they discussed their favourite-ever films I listened nervously as my peers rattled off titles such as Citizen Kane, Rear Window and Breathless. When it was my turn I paused, said a prayer and then spat it out: "It has to be Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves." The looks of disgust that it was met with are still seared into my memory. Some of them never spoke to me again. I became a pariah on a film course which consisted of about five people all because I'd muttered the name Robin Hood.
Since then, I've learned to simply lie about my favourite film and say something slightly edgy (La Haine or Kids). But deep down, I still love it. In my view, its only real crime was its legacy. The success of Kevin Reynolds's creation (which grossed more than $390m worldwide) set up a string of historically dodgy tales featuring swashbuckling heroics and corrupt powerbrokers, which were all decorated with some truly awful attempts at European accents.
In 1993, there was Stephen Herek's The Three Musketeers, which brazenly followed Reynold's formula, casting Michael Wincott (who played Guy of Gisborne in Prince of Thieves) as an evil henchman and boasted a theme song sung by Bryan Adams (who was aided by two more middle-aged lotharios in the form of Sting and Rod Stewart). In the same year, Mel Brooks's Robin Hood: Men in Tights ably took the piss out of Reynolds's opus with Cary Elwes (of Princess Bride fame) as Robin and Larry David's best buddy Richard Lewis playing Prince John. Then, two years later, came Mel Gibson's machismo-laden ode to William Wallace which stretched historical accuracy to levels that would probably give David Starkey an aneurysm, and produced a theme song which turned into an anthem on Ibiza's dancefloors when it was given a trance remix by DJ Sakin & Friends in 1998.
When you put Prince of Thieves up against that lot all of a sudden it looks like a Fellini masterpiece in comparison. But even without being in the company of its daft children, it still stands up: early 90s big-budget romanticism, albeit dressed in tights and flouncy linen shirts.
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/mar/26/my-guilty-pleasure-robin-hood-prince-of-thieves
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