Before watching the movie:

Kevin Costner is on the poster, but I’m not going to talk about him right now. I’m sure I’ll have plenty to say after the fact.

I’m not sure if I heard the news late at night or in the morning. Last Thursday, and on into the weekend, the internet was filled with euologies for Alan Rickman. It was too late to cover last week.

But more than ever before, I had a sense that people weren’t mourning an actor, they were mourning his roles. Nobody was eulogizing Alan Rickman, they were eulogizing Severus Snape, Hans Gruber, Metatron, and Alex Dane/Dr. Lazarus. And I simply felt that nobody had a sense of what Rickman was really like, since nobody would accuse him of actually being like an abusive professor, terrorist, aut al. I sure didn’t know what he was like, but I try to believe the best about people, and that’s been borne out by some statements from people who knew him personally.

And so, here I am reviewing one of his more popular movies, where he plays another villain. Well, I can’t review him narrating a viral video for charity. This was a movie that came up a lot in a way that didn’t seem to focus too much on the character, and of the two that came up that I hadn’t seen, this one seemed a better choice. It’s also the version most directly spoofed by Robin Hood: Men In Tights.

Continue reading →