Adorably cute, wonderful music and songs that get stuck in your head for ages.This is one of those movies that I show to every child I meet, and every adult who shares the sad story of never seeing it.Disney did a fantastic job of taking the story of Robin Hood, which has been done to death and back, and making it fun.

The legend of Robin Hood's exploits may have occurred in the 13th century (i.e. 1200's) and the earliest known written account is from the 14th century via "Piers Ploughman" by William Langland. So essentially it is a very medieval story/legend. Disney's animated take on the legend is a fairly enjoyable family experience. It does have one glaring shortcoming which I'll relate later in my review.In typical Disney fashion, the characters are all anthropomorphized animals, i.e. animals which are human-like. Robin Hood is a fox, Little John is a bear, Friar Tuck is a badger, Maid Marion is a vixen, King John is a lion, etc. The story is told by Alan-a-Dale a rooster-minstrel play by Phil Harris. The characters are generally true to those of the original legend, and to give it credit. The friendship between Robin and Little John is legendary and of course the love affair between him and Maid Marion. Friar Tuck provides the voice of morality to the story, very similar to Friar Laurence of "Romeo and Juliet". And it does include the famous archery contest which is missing in many screen renditions of the story. Although most kids have heard of Robin Hood, American kids generally don't know when the Middle Ages occurred let alone it's cultural heritage. When I saw this film, I knew of Robin Hood but I don't believe I quite understand that the story was supposed to take place in the 1200's.While I can buy into the anthropomorphized take on the characters, "Disney's Robin Hood" is weak in one glaring respect. The filmmakers opted for songs by American songwriters, particularly Phil Harris and Roger Miller, known for country-western pop tunes such as "King of the Road". When I saw this Disney's offering of the medieval legend as a kid, I didn't know anything about medieval secular music. Not until I was in college I found out there are quite a number of secular tunes which survive from the late Middle Ages. I think Disney missed out on a golden opportunity to use medieval music rather than late 20th century country-style tunes. Phil Harris tells the story in a gruff American country voice with an acoustic guitar. The guitar wouldn't be invented for another 500 years from around the time of the events. In other words, medieval minstrels wouldn't use guitars. So sadly, the music style fails to bring us into the 13th century. (Roger Miller would a decade later write the score for a Broadway production of "Huckleberry Finn" called "Big River" which was a much more appropriate use of his talents. He would win awards for the music.) Still, all things considered, Disney's "Robin Hood" stays truer to the story than many other offerings. The later "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" is not as well written as the Disney animated film, in particular they cut out the archery contest. The best in recent years is probably "Robin Hood" starring Russell Crowe and directed by Ridley Scott. However, even that offering is only about half the story as he doesn't become "Robin Hood" until the very end.

I've never really had any love for Disney. I don't worship at the church of the mouse or get all weepy over it's iconography. So I'm judging its early 70s take on 'Robin Hood' strictly on merit, and sadly it barely gets a passing grade.Considered one of Disney's weaker animated efforts by even the most ardent of fans, 'Robin Hood' ambles along pleasantly enough, but it never displays any sense of purpose and ultimately never builds any momentum. The humor lacks wit and often falls flat despite the best efforts of a solid voice cast. Only their talent and the animation--which looks up to the usual Disney standards despite it's reduced budget and some cost cutting recycling--manage to rise above.Disney's 'Robin Hood' has it's charms, but they're likely to be lost on the young, and grownups are likely to be too bored to even notice them.

Robin Hood is Disney's version of the classic English folktale, including multiple elements from different retellings, including King Richard being away on a Crusade, evil Prince John ruling the land with an iron fist, Maid Marian and many others. It's also one of the most successful films from the so called scratchy era of Disney when they were using the Xerox copy paste method to make their films with a smaller budget.Robin Hood succeeds because it's just so likable. The style, for one, is nicely medieval. Everything, from the opening titles to the characters to the style of music to the dialogue, hearkens back to the Dark Ages and as a whole it's one of the best medieval films Disney has ever done.Another great thing is the character cast. This is a film of many unforgettable characters, from Robin Hood himself to Little John, from the sheriff of Nottingham to Prince John, who's the perfect example of how to make a complete wimp of a villain that's still a legitimate threat, plus interesting to watch. The side characters are also excellent and as a whole they're so good that the story practically tells itself.The one problem and the reason why I didn't rate this higher, is the fact that this film is notorious for borrowing heavily from previous films. Various dance and action sequences were copy pasted directly from The Jungle Book and Snow White, among others. The character of Little John is basically just Baloo with a green shirt. Sir Hiss, Prince John's lackey, is simply just Kaa with a hat and a cape. It doesn't ruin the film, and you really can't tell if you haven't seen the films in question, but it does mean that it cannot be called a perfect film.Nevertheless, Robin Hood is a great deal of fun. It's filled with thrilling scenes, one after another, has a great character cast, some good songs and as a whole it's simply entertaining.