Review of Robin Hood

Introduction

This classic tale is finally available to buy on Disney DVD as one of their "Gold Collection" titles. All our favourite characters are here: Friar Tuck, Little John, King Richard, The Sheriff of Nottingham, Maid Marion, Prince John and of course, our hero Robin Hood.

Robbing from the rich to feed the poor may seem like a very charitable and honourable lifestyle, but is this a job best suited to the current Chancellor of the Exchequer?

Video

Created in 1973, this movie has all the vibrancy and sheer fun that one would expect from a Disney movie. Colours are deep and well saturated with all the detail preserved from the original print.

The full screen 1.33 picture is as good as can be expected, with no artifacting, dust marks or other image faults. Basically, just as good a transfer as can be expected and certainly a match for some of their more modern releases such as "The Lion King II - Simba`s Pride".

Audio

Just a standard mono soundtrack, but still with enough range to encompass all the trappings of a Disney animated movie. The character vocals and songs are clear, with no discernable background hiss thanks to DVD’s digital sound.

Features

As a "Gold Collection" title, Disney has given us a few extras to play around with, naturally aimed at the children (or childish adults!)

First up is a Robin Hood storybook, where you can choose to have the story read to you (while you follow the words and pictures on-screen), or read by yourself (and flick forward to the next page when finished). Either way, this is a fun feature that gives a bit of reading practice for the youngsters. The American narrator`s voice is not that grating (for once) and is bearable for the duration of the feature.

Next up is an Interactive Trivia Game where the viewer gets to take part in a multiple-choice type quiz. A total of 16 questions are presented and answers are greeted with a hearty response, right or wrong. At the end of the quiz, a final mark is awarded. Fun while it lasts, but the range of questions is very limited and played once, will probably never be again.

For Disney sing-along fans, there is the title track to enjoy. Entitled "Oo-de-lally", karaoke-style lyrics appear at the bottom of the screen, with Mickey Mouse ears bouncing along the words as they are sung. Unfortunately, the tempo is a bit too lively for children to keep up with and ends rather abruptly half way through whilst the song continues until the end. Strange.

Lastly we have a wonderfully nostalgic, vintage cartoon from 1930 starring the one-and-only Mickey Mouse. "Ye Olden Days" is a real trip back in time and to see how the art of animation has changed over the years is incredible. Mickey, Goofy and Minnie are present in their early forms, very different to how we see them today. I ended up enjoying this 5-minute cartoon almost as much as the 90 minutes of Robin Hood.

I guess I should also mention that the selection of Disney trailers included in the main menu are the same as the ones that play automatically at the start of the disk. Note that thankfully these can be skipped through, as they are encoded as different chapters on the disk.

Conclusion

Disney sure knows how to put together an animated movie. Having thrilled children the world over for almost 80 years, it is good to see classic titles such as this on DVD. Never looking good enough on VHS, the sheer quality of the colouring and artwork shine through and create a wonderfully rich and engrossing experience.

Robin Hood captures all the exciting bowmanship, swordplay and daring deeds of the famous children`s tale and as usual, gives us some entertaining and memorable characters. Most notably, the wimpy Prince John who throws temper tantrums and sucks his thumb, his sidekick Sir Hiss and the greedy Sheriff are all superbly voiced with great feeling and emotion.

Robin Hood is a Disney classic that deserves a place in your DVD collection.