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That's when Prince of Thieves finally jolts awake. Robin orchestrates a cunning climactic assault, the Merry Men's arrows sizzle through the sky like happy Scuds, and the bustle of bodies and cameras produces congenial movie movement. Two of the actors carry this larkish spirit throughout the film. Geraldine McEwan, in devil-doll weeds, makes for a hilariously desiccated witch. And Alan Rickman, fairly drooling with delight at his own wickedness, plays the Sheriff of Nottingham as a vibrant cartoon villain: Snidely Whiplash rampant.
These performers are British; they were steeped from birth in high style and the seductive melody of theatrical rhetoric. But the leads -- Costner, Mastrantonio, Christian Slater as Will Scarlet, Micheal McShane as Friar Tuck, Morgan Freeman as a Moor displaced in Nottingham -- are all American, intoning flat varieties of American English. They sound like tourists stranded in Sherwood Forest. And they inadvertently give a new meaning to the story: now Robin and his band are vagrant colonials who save England from those who can actually speak the language.
Dull speaking, in Costner's case, is an emblem of miscasting. The character of Robin Hood demands emotional exuberance -- not Costner's forte. He does not spring; he is coiled. He is a reactive actor; audiences enjoy watching him think. In Bull Durham, Field of Dreams and Dances with Wolves he played, quite persuasively, cynics who find something to believe in. But Nottinghamshire is no place for California dreamin'. Perhaps, in the two recent movies about legendary princes, the stars should have swapped roles. Mel Gibson could have been a dashing Robin Hood and Costner a provocative Hamlet.
Not till the very end of the film, when King Richard pops up, portrayed, in a surprise appearance, by an actor who has launched many a grand movie adventure, will audiences get a glimpse of epic star quality. Then, like the Merry Men, they will unleash a hearty ho-ho. The rest of this Robin Hood merits only a ho-hum.