Classic Movie Review: 'Robin Hood Men in Tights'

Robin Hood Men in Tights (1993)

Directed by Mel Brooks

Written by Mel Brooks, Evan Chandler, J. David Shapiro

Starring Cary Elwes, Amy Yasbeck, Mel Brooks, Richard Lewis, Roger Rees, Isaac Hayes

Release Date July 28th, 1993

Published July 26th, 2023

Mel Brooks has a generational impact. For many, their Mel Brooks movie experience began with The Producers and proceeded to Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles. My Mel Brooks experience, due to having been born late in the Gen-X generation, was a little different. My Mel Brooks movies were Spaceballs and Robin Hood Men in Tights. The earlier Mel Brooks classics came to me later. Thus, I think I hold both Spaceballs and Robin Hood Men in Tights in high regard because I simply saw them and fell in love with them first.

This doesn't mean that I believe that Spaceballs and Robin Hood Men in Tights are better than the Brooks 1970s movies. It just means that I have a much softer spot for Brooks 80s and 90s work, a soft spot that many older Brooks fans do not share. Older fans of Mel Brooks have often stated that Brooks became a bit too reliant on referring to his past glory in the 80s and early 90s. They aren't entirely wrong. Both Spaceballs and Robin Hood Men in Tights rely heavily on referring to gags and characters that Brooks invented in his glorious 60s and 70s peak.

That said, I still love Robin Hood Men in Tights and looking back on it 30 years after it was released, I was surprised to find that my love for the film is as strong as ever. Brooks' ingenious satire of Kevin Costner's dreary Robin Hood adaptation is also a loving homage to the original telling of Robin Hood on the big screen, that undertaken by the legendary Errol Flynn in the 1930s. Weaving nods to both of those Robin Hood stories, amid references to his own legendary canon, Mel Brooks created Robin Hood Men in Tights, a cocksure and headstrong comedy. Or was that the other way around?

The brilliance of Mel Brooks is on display immediately in Robin Hood Men in Tights. Within moments of his credits sequence bursting on the screen with heroic music and the visual of fiery arrows being fired into the distance, Brooks begins breaking the fourth wall. The credits arrows have hit a nearby village, lighting the whole thing on fire as residents complain that this happens every time someone makes a Robin Hood movie. The very funny meta gag ends with the extras turning to the camera to tell Mel Brooks to leave them alone.

And we are off to the races with a timely gag that parodies the then modern pop culture obsession with hip hop culture. Brooks has a rapper deliver the back story of Robin Hood in a pitch perfect send up of the awful ways 90s Hollywood attempted to co-opt the cool of Hip Hop. The Robin Hood of Robin Hood Men in Tights is introduced while fighting in The Crusades. Cary Elwes gives comic life to Brooks' conception of Robin Hood as a terrifically handsome, smiling, and wildly charming hero. Swimming his way back from the Middle East to England, Robin has a rude awakening.

While he's been gone, Prince John (Richard Lewis) and the Sheriff of Rottingham (Roger Rees) have imposed massive taxes and oppressive new laws on the citizenry. They've also repossessed all of Robin's property, even towing away his family's castle. This leaves behind only Robin's faithful servant, Blinken (Mark Blankfield) who explains that Robin's parents, brothers and pets have all died while he was gone, each dying horribly connected deaths. Blankfield's deftly clueless delivery is one of the brilliant touches that keeps coming back funnier and funnier throughout Robin Hood Men in Tights. Blankfield's performance is also a reference to Young Frankenstein and the performance of Marty Feldman as Igor.

Everything from this point on proceeds through the well worn beats of the Robin Hood story, robbing from the rich to give to the poor, romancing Maid Marian (Amy Yasbeck), and building toward a showdown with the Sheriff of Rottingham that will, of course, lead to the downfall of Prince John and the return of King Richard to restore the throne and the kingdom. Amid the familiar stories are a series of Brooks gags that never fail to get a laugh. Whether he's making a mocking reference to Robin Hood lore or riffing on his own classics, even name dropping Blazing Saddles for a laugh, Brooks' Robin Hood Men in Tights proves to be a breezy and hilarious comedy.

A criticism that some have of Robin Hood Men in Tights that has held some back from embracing it as one of Mel Brooks' best comes from how Brooks repeats gags from his own earlier films. One gag in particular, a moving camera breaking the fourth wall by crashing through a window, is both a gag that Brooks created for High Anxiety in 1980 and a reference to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho which is a little out of the ordinary for a Robin Hood parody. I understand the criticism, but the joke is still funny. In the context, the camera is being a creep, creeping on Amy Yasbeck's Maid Marian in the bath. That, at the very least, freshens up the bit, if only a little.

Brooks' fourth wall breaking is another well worn trope of Brooks' movies. Having Cary Elwes turns to camera to mock his ineffectual enemies, having Brooks as Rabbi Tuckman break the fourth wall to reference his own History of the World Pt. 1, "It's good to be the King," is a reference to Brooks' past that he's repeated in several different ways throughout his career. It's understandable that some fans or critics might find these very obvious tropes a little tiresome. I found these jokes funny when I first saw Robin Hood Men in Tights 30 years ago, even not having known what they were referring to. In fact, these references made me go back and watch Brooks' classics from the 60s and 70s, so, in that way, there is good value to such blatant reference making.

To this day, I still hold Robin Hood Men in Tights in high regard. That is in part because of Cary Elwes. Elwes is the absolute best version of Robin Hood. The man could have played the character in a real Robin Hood adventure and made it work, he's that talented and charismatic. As it is, Elwes masterfully and charmingly sends up both Errol Flynn and Kevin Costner's takes on the character while cutting his own comic path with the character. Elwes's smile and twinkling eyes are the secret sauce of Robin Hood Men in Tights, that extra kick of fun and funny that makes me love Robin Hood Men in Tights to this day.

Robin Hood Men in Tights is the latest 1993 movie to be featured on the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast spinoff, Everyone's a Critic 1993. On the show, myself and my co-hosts, Gen-Z'er M.J, and Gen-X'er, Amy watch the movies of 1993 in release order. It's fascinating to see the way movies and culture have changed in the last 3 decades, for better and for worse. You can hear the Everyone's A Critic 1993 podcast, on the Everyone's a Critic Movie Review Podcast feed, wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes come out on Thursdays.