Very disappointing. The first of the Disney classics I've seen so far that was clearly and obviously written for children.
Robin Hood was released in 1973, and was the second film in a decade and a half of
Disney animation efforts that are much less warmly remembered than those that came before and after.
The wikipedia entry talks about the cheapness of the production, with much reused animation (both within the film and from earlier films), but that didn't bother me so much. The overall quality of the animation
was noticeably poorer than in earlier films, and the quality varied during the film. Some of the early forest scenes had backgrounds as good at those in Snow White and other masterpieces, but other sets, especially those in the castle, had far less detail and looked hurried. The real problem was the writing and the plot, though. First, the scores:
Robin Hood, 1973
Script/Story: 5
Characters/Performances: 6
Concept: 5
Action: 7
Eye Candy: 5
Fun Factor: 4
Replayability: 4
Overall: 4
This was the first film I ever saw in theaters, or so I've been told. My grandfather took me to see it when I was very young, but like almost everything else before about age 7, I have zero memory of it, and know of this event only from hearing it talked about in later years. I did see this one at some point since then, since most of it was familiar to me. Perhaps in a rerelease, or on TV at some point. At any rate, I had memories of it, and they were fond ones. I was looking forward to this rewatching, since I've always liked the Robin Hood myth, and my recollection of this one was of lots of action and clever hijinks by Robin and Little John, as they outwitted the evil Prince John and his various animal sidekicks.
The film does have that, but everything exists on such a childish level that it was hard to enjoy. Things are just too simple and uncomplicated, and all the characters are drawn in such black and white terms. All the villagers of Nottingham are adorable cute animals, and all either prey animals, or cute, domesticated types; rabbits, hedgehogs, hound dogs, owls, etc. All of the soldiers and guards are bad and evil, or at best unthinking brutes. So of course they're all huge, scary, predominantly-African animals: wolves, vultures, rhinos, elephants, crocodiles, etc.
The world is very, very small, too. There are usually just one or two characters on screen at a time (faster to animate that way), and they don't really interact with their surroundings. Trees or chairs or other things are just background, with the characters posing in front of them, and seldom using any of the props, or interacting with anything other than the ground they usually seem to float slightly above. There are very few angles or varieties of views either; no big overhead shots to show the scale of things, few moving camera views to show the amazing depth created by the multiple glass pane effect used so well in earlier Disney films. As a result, everything seems small and depopulated.
An early scene has Robin and Little John in disguise as gypsy fortune tellers (I doubt they had such things in England in that era, but much of the film is gleefully anachronistic). The evil Prince John is instantly taken in by them, and he stops the march of his guards and treasure chest to enjoy a private reading in his curtained palanquin. During the reading Robin is inside, and Little John is outside, and the dozens of guards shown a moment before are just sort of gone. Little John can steal the "solid gold hubcabs" off of the wagon without being noticed, and then he can even walk up to the huge tax chest and drill a hole in the bottom of it with his dagger without anyone noticing. Now this chest is large enough to hold two well-folded Asian girls within, and it's being carried on long poles by 8 uniformed rhinos. None of whom are shown during the drilling process, when they are presumably looking somewhere else?
This kind of thing happens all the time, too. In the later archery contest scene Little John is able to walk up and sit down beside the King of England without a single guard in sight. There are numerous scenes of the castle, but there's never a servant or commoner within; just guards. There aren't any farmers, hunters, trackers, or travelers on the road. No rich merchants, no nobles, no ladies of the court, etc. The instant Robin and any of his associates, including dogs on crutches and tiny children, run into the trees, they vanish from the face of the earth and none of the king's guards make any effort to pursue them.
It's just an eerily empty, entirely unrealistic world, a fact which wouldn't be noticed by the six year olds this film was written to entertain, but which is distractingly obvious to adult viewers.
The ultimate plot is quite lame as well. The whole point is that Prince John is a dildo, and is only ruling because King Richard is off on Crusade. So the people are always hoping Richard will return and kick his thieving, cruel, tyrannical brother off the throne. And eventually he does... off screen, with no confrontation or any kind of "in the nick of time" drama. I was amazed by that, since I had clear memories of him showing up in time to save Robin and the villagers. I must have imagined it, my youthful mind writing a better version of the movie (which any 5 y/o could do).
In the actual film, there's a big finale scene with Robin and Little John breaking all of the villagers out of the jail in the castle, and stealing back all of the gold in the process. They are discovered before they can get out, there's a mad rush for escape, some stupid bunny child gets left behind, Robin goes back to save it, is trapped inside, and ends up leaping/falling from the burning tower into the moat. He then does the famous "breath through a reed" trick, avoiding the arrows and swimming to safety. Once on the far shore he hops out and taunts Prince John, who is unable to send any of his hundreds of soldiers to pursue the heavily-laden procession of fleeing sick, lame, villagers because... I dunno. He just gives up once Robin is out of the castle.
The film then fades to black, and the next scene has John, his snake retainer, and the sheriff of Nottingham chained up and working at hard labor, while the voice over explains how King Richard returned and set things to right. We only see the king (a lion, of course) as he's standing in the church doorway, when Robin and Marian come out as newlyweds. And then they ride off to happily ever after, with some bad jokes about "an outlaw for an in-law!" I couldn't believe how lame that ending was. How could they not have had a fight between brothers? A dramatic rescuing return by King Richard? Where was the moment when Prince John sucked up his evil animal cunning and fought for what he'd stolen?
This one reminded me of lots of modern day 3D animation, where the visuals are amazing and there was obviously a ton of work put into the look and concept of the film, but apparently it was written by the texture animators and texture artists on their lunch break, since the characters are flat and boring, and the story sucks. The characters in Robin Hood weren't that boring, but they were all very predictable and archetypal, (the Sir Hiss evil snake was kind of cool, actually) and the story was awful. Even for a children's movie.
This one did serve one useful purpose. It conclusively demonstrated to me how easily children are entertained. Because I actually remember liking this, and never having any inkling of a thought about how simple and stupid the plot, characters, setting, etc, were. Lots of other stuff, books and comics and video games I liked as a kid, I've sampled in adulthood and found my childish enjoyment of them understandable, if not repeatable. This film? Not so much.
Labels: disney, movie review
