Robin Hood
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Cast:
Extras: DVD Storybook, Trivia Game, Sing-along, Mickey Mouse Short
Rating:
Disney’s ’Gold Collection’ releases for July are here and I must say, there have been some noticeable improvements. After the ugly transfers featured on ’Pocahontas’ and ’The Fox and the Hound’, Disney’s DVD release of ’Robin Hood’ looks abslutely inspired. The Disney version of ’Robin Hood’ does a good job of retelling the story of the familiar folk hero. Robin Hood robs the rich citizens of Nottingham and gives the money to the poor citizens, who are being taxed to death by the greedy Prince John. Robin loves Maid Marian, but as he is an outlaw, they cannot be together. Robin constantly outwits Prince John and the Sherrif of Nottingham and helps to restore happiness to the land.
The image on the ’Robin Hood’ DVD is presented full-frame. The picture is very crisp and only shows minor grain. The best thing about this release are the colors. They literally leap off of the screen. Every character wears a different color costume, and these colors never bleed together, but remain very vibrant. While some minor defects in the animation are made evident by the digital transfer, the overall effect is very impressive. However, the mono audio tracks leave much to be desired, as they seem anti-climatic when compared to the lovely visual presentation.
’Robin Hood’ contains many extras, mostly aimed at a younger crowd. There is a DVD storybook, in which the story of ’Robin Hood’ can be read or a voice will read it to you. There is an interactive trivia game (with really easy questions!), which uses the voices of the characters from the film to congratulate you on a correct answer. There is a ’sing-along’ for the opening song, ’Oo-de-lally’, which was obvioulsy lifted from one of the Disney ’Sing-Along’ videotapes, as the visual quality is lacking when compared to the DVD image of the feature film. Finally, there is a Micke Mouse short cartoon entitled ’Ye Olden Days’, in which Mickey must save princess Minnie Mouse from marrying the clumsy prince. This short appears to be very old. How old? Goofy is called ’Dippy Dawg!’ Hasn’t Goofy been around for years?