good film but with many flaws

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Inspired by my re-watch of Kevin Costner's take on the tale, I decided to seek out a selection of other RH movies. First up is this little remembered RH flick from the same year. Debuting on Fox TV here in the U.S. a full month before 'Prince of Thieves', it tried to capitalize on the latter's growing hype. But featuring neither Kevin Costner nor a hit pop ballad, it has since fallen into obscurity, occasionally championed by a small minority of people who claim that it's superior to the far more popular film.There are recognizable faces here. Patrick Bergin ('Sleeping with the Enemy', 'Patriot Games') stars as the titular character, but he lacks the chops both physically and charismatically to pull it off. There is no Sheriff of Nottingham in this version, no Guy of Gisbourne, and Prince John makes only a brief appearance. With the focus here on Norman/Saxon tensions, two other antagonists are introduced, one played by Jürgen Prochnow, who is no Alan Rickman, but then again who is? But the biggest name here is Uma Thurman as Marion. Barely 20 years old at the time, she's downright ethereal here.This is the TV cut of the film (I've read a German cut runs twenty or so minutes longer) and clocks in at about an hour and forty five minutes. It certainly moves along more briskly than the bloated 'Prince of Thieves', but it feels chopped up, with Robin falling in with his Merry Men and becoming their leader and renowned outlaw in all of about ten minutes. The action-- such as it is--is painfully dull, the film is bleakly shot and many of the performances fall flat. Though it has a few moments here and there, this version of the classic tale is one best left forgotten.

My wife tried to talk me out of watching this and I sure wish I had listened. Truly appalling. I have just sat through basically two hours of some of the worst fight scenes ever, a horrific score, some appalling dialogue and a terrible butchering of a great story. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at such an awful attempt at a film and in an effort to serve humanity am writing this review. I simply cannot believe that the makers of this film thought they were making a good film. The cast holds some promise but is so badly let down by the script and score that no one could have held this together. I advise the utmost caution to anyone thinking of watching this dreadful film and would recommend watching grass grow as a far better use of time.

Today, Costner is less popular than he was when he did "Dances with Wolves", which was his last really good movie (like Metallica's last good album, the Black one, for many many metallers and grufties the tombstone of that band, and really, much later in the end of the nineties, Metallica commented in news articles against Napster, so that they became commercial is out of question as proved hereby).So, for me, as for anyone who wants to indulge in medieval stuff that is authentic and not too much cliché-Hollywood, this movie wins highly over the great concurrent which we have all seen, "Prince of Thieves", that is admittedly done with a lot of humor, but also in a too Hollywood-style-overloaded way.By the way, the opening font of the title is the same as in the famous video game "Deadly Shadows", probably the designers of the latter took it from this movie.Well-done is the story with the longbows. But the Norman soldiers are better in "Robin of Sherwood", the series.The worst thing is the main actor. I like him personally, I mean... I don't know him and I'm a pure hetero, huhu... no, wit aside: I don't like the way he presents himself in the movie, it really DESTROYS the whole atmosphere and in front of all the authenticity and therefore the convincing factor of the movie, when the main actor has got a strong American accent!It's impossible that anyone spoke like that in middle-age Europe!All other actors are English, I don't know why they took such a Magnum-facsimile and if it had to be him, why they couldn't even let him take some crash-course in medieval English (possibly with Jeremy Brett, the best Holmes EVER, who quite had undergone some speaking handicaps, or Geoffrey Bayldon, the actor and brilliant medieval speaker in "Catweazle", a work of the writer and ex-actor Kip Carpenter, as is "Robin of Sherwood", the measure this movie here has to cope with!)?When they pay such a lot for it? Maybe, the producers were only after people's money at the cinema counter and the box-office - Robin Hood himself, if he ever existed, like Willhelm Tell or even King Arthur and Merlin, went for fame and not money.The whole person-to-person relations are either too seemingly macho-like or too comically overdone - when Prochnow is rejected by Marian played by Thurman, a cunning watcher recognizes the overwhelming countenance of the noble Prochnow which is hidden by him in a great effort of controlled rage. Thurman can't adequately cope with that ground-sticking niveau of acting craftsmanship.So, it is not convincing that in the plot as defined by the legend, she turns him down. because we can hardly imagine Thurman turning Prochnow down.Sorry to all, it is like that, admit it or not.To me, every second of the first two series of "Robin of Sherwood" is totally convincing, this series (maybe not the third one with that Connery-son), I took up into my heart's deepest regions.I cannot do that with this movie, sadly. It is not good enough. It is well done is many, many aspects, but the display of all the important personal relations is making a joke out of the whole movie.Many here said it was "WAY" better than Costner's Version. But back in 1991, I can't recall or imagine that they all would have said the same. Back then, we were ALL fascinated by Costner, admit it, folks!

I thought this was a wonderful version of the Robin Hood story. I've read a lot of comments comparing this to the Costner version, but I haven't seen that one so won't comment that way. In this version, I really appreciated the historical aspect of it. I enjoyed seeing how some of the relationships began. I found the story to be thorough without being tedious. They took the time to share the background of Robin himself and the reason behind his ways. The fight scenes were also intense enough without being too disturbing. Overall, this was well written and well acted. My husband thought it felt like Shakespeare, and I would have to agree. It was definitely worthy of the big screen release it didn't get.