Robin Hood (1973)
Although I’ve seen it many many times before I was really looking forward to this one coming round. It is one of my sisters favourite Disney movies of all time. Probably in her top four or five and one I really really enjoy as well. It is one of Disney’s funniest films - which when you think about the Aladdins, Zootopias and Incredibles of this world is really quite a feat. It’s also easily the best Robin Hood film there’s ever been. I love Prince of Thieves as much as the next person, but even that doesn’t find the perfect balance of comedy, action and romance that this one manages.
Cards on the table: we are from Nottingham, so perhaps Robin Hood holds a special place in our hearts, but I still think this movie would appeal to me even if I wasn’t from there.
So let’s get the criticism out of the way first, so I can get on with gushing: the animation is nothing to write home about. It’s scruffy, there’s lots of fairly noticeable bits of repetition and the backgrounds are very lazily done. Even though the animation isn't great through, they’ve still managed to bring so much life and personality to the characters that overall the movie is still a success visually. The songs in the movie also are not standouts. I enjoy them immensely, but objectively speaking they’re not up there with the greats from this period. I really like the country sound and I think it was a good choice for this movie however, especially since the narrator is supposed to be a minstrel.
So, on to what I liked, which is...everything else. These characters are some of the best we’ve seen so far and there isn’t a dud among them. Robin is sooo charismatic and exactly what you want Robin Hood to be; brave, cocky, hilarious, romantic and effortlessly cool. Phil Harris plays the straight man to Brian Bedford in this movie, which is nice to see after seeing him as the more broadly funny Baloo and Thomas O’Malley. He is just as good in this role as he was in the previous two.
The villains are fabulous too. The Sheriff is no Alan Rickman but he is still pretty funny and Peter Ustinov as Prince John just makes the film. He’s quite an unusual sort of Disney villain, being childish and scheming, and less proactive than the villains usually are. But he gives the performance everything and is totally hilarious.
I could pretty much mention every other character in the movie at this point (Marian! So lovely! Clucky! What a badass!) but I won’t because we’ll be here forever.
In terms of plotting this movie is really well paced. Every incident tells us something about the characters and there’s none of the ‘comic business’ that seem to exist independently of the story and take you out of it, like with the mice in Cinderella and the dogs in Aristocats. The comedy sequences all advance the story and feel truthful both to the characters involved and to the overall tone of the film. My sister thinks this might be Disney’s funniest film, I’m still voting for Zootopia! But the humour here definitely appeals to me more as an adult than it did when I was a child, and the sheer irreverence of it really tickles me.
Basically, I really like this movie. I’ve watched it hundreds of times before and will watch it hundreds of times again, because this is how a Robin Hood movie should be done. Stop remaking and rebooting this story, Hollywood, Disney already nailed it.