Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves (2 Disc Special Edition) [DVD] [1991]

The film is great - a really fun swashbuckler and just as good as I remembered it.

It's great to see this film uncut for the first time in the UK since it was in the cinemas - this 12 cert version is a full 18 years overdue!

Note though that this is the extended version of the film, with roughly an extra 12 minutes of footage. Personally, I'd have preferred the theatrical version - or the choice of both (this is blu ray after all).

The transfer quality is not the best, but is perfectly adequate, and there's a decent selection of special features too.

The menus are a bit basic, but I view this as a good thing as it keeps the useful resume functionality (enabling you to stop the film and pick up from where you left off - as you can with DVDs), which is a function sorely missing from blu ray discs with flashier interfaces.

On the whole then, a great addition to your collection, especially if you don't own it already on DVD.

I liked the Robin Hood film because it was entertaining, funny and exciting. My favourite character was the Sheriff of Nottingham because although he is mean and evil, I thought he was funny. My opinion is that the film was great. Robin Hood has a group of friends they call themselves The Merry Men. These characters are Robin's friends Friar Tuck, Little John, Maid Marion, the King and Wilf a little boy. Robin Hood and the Merry Men live in deep damp Sherwood Forest. The Sheriff lives in a big castle with lots of guards to stop you from getting in the castle. The Sheriff's gang also have lots of weapons used for fighting their enemies. I give this film 4/5. It is a brilliant film, so try watching it today. It is fabulous so remember buy it and try it!

By Poppy Gevaux
Year 3 pupil
Hilldene Primary School

It's Hollywood, not Sherwood, with Kevin Costner's Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves fighting injustice in his quest to make England free for those who can't actually speak the language, armed only with his trusty longbow, a dubious accent ("This is English courage" gets a big laugh every time), a fluctuating waistline and an unerringly bad sense of direction. "Come, by nightfall we will dine at my father's castle," he says to his Muslim sidekick Azem (Morgan Freeman). Not when you land in Dover you won't. And Hadrian's Wall is NOT "but five miles" from Nottingham. Sorry, Kev.

You have to look a long way down the credits to find an English actor, unless you count the villains, with Alan Rickman's Sheriff so far over the top that he's back again, leaving you with the impression that Costner's controversial decision to cut many of his scenes had more to do with restraint than pique. With Christian I-Want-to-be-Jack-Nicholson-when-I-grow-up Slater in the cast, you can forgiven for fearing the film will turn into Surf Saxons Must Die, and British writers Pen Densham and John Watson do display a healthy contempt for their heritage and history. No-one actually says it, but you know they're thinking "screw history, let's blow something up," and, indeed, the script manages to pull of the twin feat of giving a logical reason for Robin having a black sidekick and getting lots of explosions into a medieval adventure, although they don't quite manage to convince you that their Robin truly is modelled after the Tim Holt character in The Magnificent Ambersons.

Neither Errol Flynn's definitive adventure nor Sean Connery and Richard Lester's brilliantly melancholy interpretation have anything to worry about, with the film falling between the two stools and offering political correctness instead of revisionism and opting for pure adventure with the trimmings of gritty historical realism brushed aside whenever it threatens to get in the way.

The biggest problem is that the scars of a messy and acrimonious production (seven credited producers, no less) are all too visible. Kevin Reynolds' direction lacks the punch of his earlier and unfairly overlooked The Beast of War or even his bonkers Rapa Nui, with some uncomfortable medium shots and the unsteadiest Steadicam work in cinema history, while subplots such as the black magic element are thrown away after the early scenes. On the plus side, Michael Kamen's score is his most enjoyable and exciting, John Bloomfield's costumes are terrific, Doug Milsome's photography almost camouflages the bad weather and some of the action scenes are well handled, although it's hard to imagine anyone here giving Basil Rathbone or even Robert Shaw too much trouble in a swordfight.

While the 2-disc edition has some okay but fairly low-calorie extras, the film itself - aswith all previous editions - is cut by the BBFC: in this case some 26 seconds of censor cuts.