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FILMTRACKS.COM
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VIEW 
Review of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (Michael Kamen)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... on the outstanding 2018 or 2020 albums if you seek a more
comprehensive presentation of this flawed but occasionally highly
entertaining score, a work highlighted by a memorable title fanfare and
fine orchestral interpolations of the melody from the famous Bryan Adams
song for the film.
Avoid it... if you expect the whole of Michael Kamen's music to soar with any sense of convincing swashbuckling spirit or, more importantly, if you demand a decent performance and recording strategy for a score that deserved far better execution.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves: (Michael Kamen) When
Warner Brothers built enormous anticipation in advance of its 1991
adaptation of the famous 'Robin Hood' tale, few could have predicted
that a film with such a remarkable cast and high production values would
be such a critical flop. Despite his sky-high popularity at the time,
Kevin Costner was badly miscast in the lead role, reducing all the high
spirit of the character into a troubled and introspective one. Who the
hell wants to see a thinking man's Robin Hood? At the opposite end of
the spectrum was Alan Rickman, whose entertainingly sick portrayal of
the Sheriff of Nottingham is so outrageously comical that he also
defeats the purpose of the character. The deathblow of the film,
however, came with the production's murky and violent take on the story,
adding unnecessary characters, causing confusion about Maid Marian's
existence between independence and typical damsel, and showing brutality
unsuitable for children and disconcerting for adults. Still, audiences
lapped it up and gave Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves extraordinary
returns at the box office regardless of all these issues. The ambitious
orchestral score by Michael Kamen, tinged with medieval source material,
is immensely long and was thrown together at the last minute,
overshadowed at the outset by the very obvious and surprisingly
effective use of several parts of James Horner's Willow during
the film's relentless advertising blitz. Despite Kamen's efforts to
fulfill the request for a swashbuckling score of equal bravado, nothing
he accomplished symphonically could compare with his collaboration with
Bryan Adams for the song "Everything I Do, I Do It for You" for the
picture, and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves became one of those
rare occasions in which an end title song was such a monumental success
that it alone served as life support for the rest of the production. The
song spent significant time atop the charts and was recognized by the
Oscars, propelling album sales and thus bringing an unexpected infusion
of interest in Kamen's peripherally related score.
While his contribution to Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves offered a few singular highlights in context, the composer's music was absolutely butchered by editors in post-production, chopped to pieces and rearranged in decent but nagging, unnatural placements throughout. Even when it does shine, its haphazard, last-minute rendering in the recording studio by a massive army of orchestrators betrays the writing with frequent personality shifts and performance errors. When Kamen succeeds in this venture, the score exhibits flashes of greatness, and these highlights are enough to supply the work with its lasting reputation. Interestingly, however, aside from the song and an associated packaged suite of music from the score arranged for the original album, the remainder of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves exposes a score that badly underachieves. Kamen's concepts for the film are fine; in fact, his primary themes are quite adept at compensating for the lack of energy and passion in the performances on screen. The bold fanfare that opens the film is provided faithfully by Kamen for moments of Robin's heroic actions throughout the story, the initial rhythmic cello motif (artificially spliced into several transition scenes) and first three, rising notes of the main theme existing almost everywhere. Its use to yield an unresolved, broken chord during the "Finale" closure is quite irritating, in fact. In the heart of the film, "Training Sequence" offers the most satisfyingly full presentation of this theme, highlighted by repeated gong strikes but dogged by wildly exposed trumpet lines. (Later albums offer several solid renditions of this cue.) The incorporation of the song's longer, fluid melody into the score as Maid Marian's representation makes for very easy and enjoyable string and woodwind-led performances in "Maid Marian" and "Marian at the Waterfall." Such unrestrained romanticism is actually in short supply in this score, though the fluttering oboe solos that accompany Marian here and elsewhere are a nice touch. For casual listeners, "Marian at the Waterfall" will highlight the score as it features heavier string textures for the drama of the love story in the film, though the song's especially appealing interlude phrases are better interpolated into "Maid Marian." When Kamen attempts a lighter touch in his folksy source material or cues for the antics of the Merry Men in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, the music becomes comically silly, with bouncing and prancing rhythms more appropriate for the Mel Brooks parody Robin Hood: Men in Tights and supplying too much light-heartedness for this context. Kamen did not spend a significant amount of time concocting memorable motifs for the secondary characters of the story. Much of the stewing woodwind work in "Sir Guy of Gisborne" is understated and bland, and there sadly exists no musical identity for the Sheriff, with the cue "The Sheriff and his Witch" resorting to underdeveloped groaning and whining string textures. Listeners expecting to hear fantastic orchestrations are often met with lifeless solo lines mixed too far back to make a positive mark on the whole. The source-like medieval material littered throughout is ironically a better match for the recording's tone. While the main theme does mark some action highlights in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, there are cues for fight scenes that unfortunately do not generate sustained excitement. Many of them, such as the inconsistent "A Prisoner of the Crusades" and "The Abduction and the Final Battle at the Gallows," fail to muster any convincing vitality or sense of rebellion. Many of the ills with this work fall back on a surprisingly dry, sparse recording and obnoxiously poor performances. The score does indeed have several notable, four-star highlights littered throughout, but the execution of the product seems rushed and, outside of a glockenspiel and some wind-like sound effects, it does not provide enough intrigue in its otherwise interesting instrumental colors to compensate for how raw the textures generally sound, especially on brass. Many of the score's best moments are frightfully rough in tone, and the mix's spread is badly managed, the instruments dryly thrown together in one central mass without satisfying separation. This extremely dull recording mix, which mostly persists on later album re-mixes that attempt to preserve the score's original intents, only serves to betray several heinous performance errors in the brass section of the "Greater Los Angeles Orchestra" that punctuate the work's action cues with cringe-worthy distractions. A faithful rerecording of the score's highlights by a qualified ensemble is merited. Ultimately, Kamen's valiant attempts for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves cannot compete at any level with the vitality of Willow or John Debney's later Cutthroat Island. The Adams song, with a slightly different mix on the original soundtrack album as opposed to the single release for radio distribution, truly is the highlight of the endeavor, and Kamen and Adams would team up again to inspire a far more enjoyable score and song pairing for Don Juan DeMarco a few years later. For the many enthusiasts of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, however, Intrada Records released a longer and popular presentation of the score in 2018, greatly expanding its material and arranging it in the order originally intended for appearance in the film. Extensive alternative mixes are also provided on this 2-CD set, and while they typically don't solve any of the issues with the raw, dry tone in the score, these alternatives are often superior to those heard in the film. Unfortunately, the label's sources at Warner could not locate many vital cues, leaving this product as unsatisfyingly incomplete. Not long after, though, Kamen's estate located fuller sources with superior sound quality, allowing Intrada to revisit the score and release a whopping 4-CD set for it in 2020. Missing only a few elusive cues, this product is borderline overkill for a score burdened by the flaws of its creation, but it is heartening to see the label treat the work with such overwhelming affection and care. The 2020 set follows a much fuller film presentation with a variety of alternates and slightly different takes on the same compositions, leaving the fourth CD for a reconstruction of the original 1991 album presentation. The entirety of the offering is remastered once again, the general ambience a little more satisfactory in some cues but the tone of the work still unacceptably raw and dry. The additional cues are of moderate interest but may not warrant the cost of the product for those already in possession of the 2018 set. With the contents of the third CD, though, the 2020 product will be a special treat for the score's true fans, Intrada going so far as to include the Morgan Creek logo music resulting from this score. Both the 2018 and 2020 options, which lack the Adams song due to licensing restrictions, are fantastic albums for a score that, despite its problems, was performed endlessly by marching bands and orchestral ensembles for the decade following its release, not to mention the application as studio logo music. The recording's abrasive flaws aside, the adventurous spirit of Kamen's theme for Robin stands as perhaps the most memorable mainstream remnant of a career cut short by the composer's unexpected death in the early 2000's. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
1991 Morgan Creek Album:
Total Time: 60:22
(track times not listed on packaging) 2018 Intrada Album: Total Time: 144:17
2020 Intrada Album: Total Time: 220:13
* previously unreleased
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert of the 1991 Morgan Creek album includes a general note about the score and
song from two of the producers/writers of the film. Those of the 2018 and 2020 Intrada products
include extensive information about the score and film.
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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves are Copyright © 1991, 2018, 2020, Morgan Creek Music, Intrada Records, Intrada Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 9/24/96 and last updated 4/26/21. |
