Streaming: a century of Robin Hood on film

“Another one?” spoke a small, clear voice a few rows behind me at the cinema, as the trailer for the new, pumped-up, down-with-the-kidz Robin Hood got noisily under way. Yes, less than a decade since Hollywood’s last, unsuccessful attempt to make the man in fawn tights a blockbusting superhero, they’ve returned to that well, continuing a long, patchy big-screen history for the socialist-minded adventurer. I haven’t yet seen how young, perky Taron Egerton fares with the bow and arrow, but in the event that the finished film, out next week, doesn’t improve on its ropy trailer, the good news is that numerous alternative tellings of the story are readily available in the streaming universe.

Netflix, unsurprisingly, comes through with a couple of the most recent. Critically written off after opening Cannes in 2010, Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood is more respectable than its reputation, benefiting from Russell Crowe’s scuffed, sturdy presence in the lead and the general khaki handsomeness of Scott’s aesthetic. Still, the dourness of the entire enterprise is heavily felt.

There’s more fun to be had on Netflix with Kevin Costner’s dodgily accented, even more iffily coiffed outlaw in 1991’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, which holds up inasmuch as it ever stood very firm in the first place. Then, as now, it’s as kitsch and overproduced and tackily rousing as the Bryan Adams power ballad it unleashed on the world, with one elevating thunderbolt of camp inspiration in Alan Rickman’s crazed Sheriff of Nottingham. It was altogether so amiably dopey as to be beyond parody, which is why Mel Brooks’s mild 1993 follow-on spoof, Robin Hood: Men in Tights (also on Netflix), remains one of his most half-hearted gagfests.

Unluckily released in the same year as Costner’s pageant, and inevitably buried in its shadow, British director John Irvin’s Robin Hood (streaming at NowTV) is one of the better straight-faced takes on the story. Shrouded in misty atmospherics and given a streak of stern sex appeal by Irish star Patrick Bergin, it’s a muscular, meat-and-potatoes interpretation – not far from Scott’s film in tone, but a bit nimbler with its narrative.

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There are those of us whose introduction to the legend was through Disney’s critterised 1973 animation Robin Hood, and who have struggled ever since to accept Robin of Loxley as anything other than one very rakish fox. Kids today can be subjected to the same delightful misconception, of course. The film, a little creakier than I remembered but still suitably merry, is available to stream on the Disney Life service.

Cartoon fans of a different persuasion can delve into the 1990 manga TV series Robin Hood’s Big Adventure, streaming on Amazon Prime, which boisterously fashions the Sherwood Forest lot as a gang of plucky tweens. And for those who’d rather see the characters aged up, Amazon also offers the bittersweet what-if whimsy of Robin and Marian (1976), with Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn as the weary lovers reunited after decades of separation and conflict. It’s the most affecting and eccentric entry in the canon.

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However, when it comes to filming this particular chestnut, the older ways are still the best ones. Curio-hunters can make for the Internet Archive to find the silent 1922 Robin Hood, which gets a lot of dash from Douglas Fairbanks in the lead. Still, Hollywood never buckled a swash with quite as much panache as it did in 1938’s unmatchable The Adventures of Robin Hood, which still positively twinkles in early three-strip Technicolor. Led by Errol Flynn with just the right balance of robust heroism and roguish mugging, it pulls off busy derring-do and swoony romance, with side servings of bouncy comedy that still play. Currently streaming at the soon-to-be-defunct Filmstruck – and happily available to rent in HD on YouTube – it’s the only Robin Hood film you’d take with you to a desert island, but that won’t stop producers trying again and again in years to come.

New to streaming and DVD this week

Columbus
(Network, 12) One of the year’s most beguiling American indies, this midwest-set walking-and-talking affairmuses wisely on love, grief and architecture, and somehow makes that combination of subjects a lot more fluid than you might think.

Skyscraper
(Universal, 12) There’s certainly architecture here, though you’d be hard-pressed to find much in the way of musing. It’s effectively a disaster-movie rehash of The Towering Inferno and The Rock, and delivers no more and no less than what that promises.

Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman
(Sony, 15) A niche item that will top certain cinephiles’ Christmas wishlists with a bullet – or at least a swish of steel – this nine-disc Criterion Collection edition of the 25-film series centred on the eponymous Japanese masseur and blademaster is almost dauntingly comprehensive.