Aaron and Pete, the good folks at the We Love To Watch podcast, once included me in their complicated love-fest for Predator 2. Like a couple of Danny Glovers, trying to give Bill Paxton the benefit of the doubt, they invited me back on to discuss Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves for their 90’s nostalgia month.
Why Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves? Why not? It has everything: Kevin Costner is Robin Hood, the Prince of Thieves! He speechifies on a log! Kevin Costner bathes in a stream, as Robin Hood, the Prince of Thieves, is wont to do. Kevin Costner fires flaming arrows while Bryan Adams sings, like a regular Robin Hood, the Prince of Thieves. Everything!
How does the 2nd-highest-grossing film of 1991 hold up today? It is a decidedly mixed bag. Alan Rickman is fantastic, presumably because he was allowed to ignore the script. Others do not fare quite so well. Costner’s basic decency looks a little bit ridiculous when he’s standing on a log, declaiming, and Morgan Freeman is both the inventor of the telescope and a born obstetrician. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves very much wants to ingratiate itself and be saluted for its princely nobility, but it’s kind of weird. And that’s before that one scene …
We also discuss horror movies, drive-ins, RiffTrax, and whether Aaron is now old enough to buy his own weed.