Richard Lester's career was a rich and varied one; I go from his tragi-comic romance PETULIA, to his tragi-comic Robin Hood film. Robin (Sean Connery) is aged and scarred, Marian (Audrey Hepburn) is a nun, Richard the Lion-Heart (Richard Harris) has become psychotic, and so forth. At times, the film feels more like a concept than an actual story, but Lester's elegaic, melancholy mood and the fine acting (especially Nicol Williamson's Little John) make it worthwhile. And God, what an ending.

An attempt to do something different with the Robin Hood story that just doesn't quite make it, despite a great cast

Tries to tell a perhaps more realistic variation of the Robin Hood story - great kudos for original idea, even if the effect isn't the greatest.

Goldman's original script must have been -- or otherwise ought to have been -- intended as a rumination on middle-aged malaise in the Middle Ages. However, under Lester's sour-apple direction, a bit callous and a lot capricious, it is no longer easy to tell what was intended: something mythic, or something realistic, or something satiric.

Has fine beginnings but decides to do nothing with them. A laughable sword battle near the end of it provides about the only memorable item in that second half.

Richard Lester is a director I have great difficulty liking. This film was Audrey's comeback, but the costumes are dreary, the lighting is harsh and the story is dull.