The 1990s were not the strongest time to be a devotee of the work of Mel Brooks, at least in terms of his directorial output (he spent a good portion of this decade working on the musical adaptation of The Producers, which is arguably his greatest achievement as an artist), since none of the three films he made during this time – which were coincidentally the final three films that he directed overall, with very little chance of him returning to that director’s chair in the future – are particularly well-regarded or admired in any way close to his early masterpieces. I have defended both Life Stinks and Dracula: Dead and Loving It as misunderstood films, but even these positive thoughts come in the form of proving that they are better than the public say they are, rather than celebrating them like his other comedic films that are far better and more well-regarded. Nestled in between these two films is the one that is perhaps the most indefensible, the notorious Robin Hood: Men in Tights – and to be clear, this isn’t going to be some brutal attack on the film, since I am still quite fond of it, although it is possibly my least favourite of Brooks’ films, if only because it feels like his most anonymous, and perhaps the only spoof he made that lacks his distinctive touch. Coming a few years after the middling Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (to which this was a direct parody, much like Spaceballs was a direct response to Star Wars, a slight departure from his more notable films, which were spoofs of entire genres rather than specific projects), the film is entertaining enough to hold our attention, being a solid version of the classic tale, as seen through Brooks’ distinctive perspective. Often quite funny, but still pale in comparison to his greatest works, Robin Hood: Men in Tights delivers exactly what we’d expect from a late-period Brooks comedy, so expectations should be tempered and pitched to the appropriate level as we voyage to Sherwood Forest to see his demented recounting of one of history’s most fascinating folkloric heroes, in a film that is at the very least serviceable.

The quality that has made Brooks’ work so endearing is that they were subversive while still focusing on the obvious. He has never been a satirist that has needed to argue towards the obscure being the foundation of his work, and instead was able to take very popular subjects, reconfiguring them into his unique perspective, and having it be remarkable. Robin Hood: Men in Tights is perhaps slightly too obvious, especially since it was going for the low-hanging fruit in a way that makes us question how necessary this film was, and whether it benefited from being covered by Brooks, or if he could have pursued something slightly more creative. The concept of the medieval spoof has been done many times before – Monty Python and the Holy Grail is the gold standard for this kind of story, and while the subject matter is different and the stories not at all similar, there is still quite a bit of overlap, making us wonder whether it was at all necessary to make a Robin Hood film, especially since the original story itself is already quite absurd and comedic, as opposed to Brooks’ attempts to take genres like historical epic, western and horror and infuse them with his trademark eccentricity. It’s made even more puzzling when we realize that Robin Hood: Men in Tights is almost entirely a direct retelling of the classic myth – if you have ever seen or read any version of the Robin Hood folktale, this film follows it relatively closely, much more than any of his prior spoofs, which usually took inspiration from a few existing texts, but went into their own wild and unique direction. The spirit of expecting the unexpected that drove most of Brooks’ work is entirely missing here since this is nothing more than a direct retelling of the exploits of Robin Hood, layered with the director’s quirks, which aren’t all that cohesive with the story, at least not in the way he is making it. This is primarily why Robin Hood: Men in Tights feels so jagged and inconsistent since it doesn’t embody everything that we adore about Brooks and his work.

I don’t want to shift the blame elsewhere, but all signs point to the problems with Robin Hood: Men in Tights being at the conceptual level, with J. David Shapiro serves as the primary writer, working with Brooks on the screenplay. While he is not an artistic autocrat, Brooks is at his best either when working with a reliable screenwriter as his partner (such as Gene Wilder or Barry Levinson, who collaborated with him on some of his best films), or writing solo. As mentioned above, this is a film that has one fundamental problem – it doesn’t feel as if it was made by Brooks, despite technically having all the components of one of his films, whether it be the irreverent satire, the parody of a very popular story and genre, and wall-to-wall jokes that are often very funny. For a director whose defining quality as an artist was the fact that he put care into even his most outrageous films, conveying meticulous attention to detail that has become lost as the art of the spoof has gradually eroded, this film is surprisingly broad – not necessarily comedically (as this was his trademark), but rather in terms of the kinds of jokes being told. It often feels as if Brooks is going for the obvious, which is not always the smartest decision because it can lead to a film that isn’t all that funny, as well as one that loses the element of surprise, an important commodity that he had previously utilized extremely well, but which is oddly absent in this film. It may not necessarily be entirely void of charm, and there are several hilarious moments – but when a film is built around gags more than it is telling a coherent and logical story (or as much as we could expect from a film by Brooks), we can start to understand why it doesn’t work all that well, and why Robin Hood: Men in Tights is seen as one of the biggest disappointments in Brooks’ wonderful and storied career.

Another aspect of Robin Hood: Men in Tights that feels somewhat disappointing is the cast – it isn’t to imply that any of these actors are not good, but rather that the film was so dedicated to being a retelling of the Robin Hood myth with a comedic spin, it didn’t bother to create characters that were all that interesting, and thus the actors didn’t have all that much to do. Car Elwes, who had recently done vaguely similar work in the far superior The Princess Bride just a few years earlier, was a good but unsurprising choice for the iconic Robin of Loxley, and while his cast is by no means inappropriate, it does feel like they were banking on his popularity more than trying to find the most interesting person for the role. The rest of his Merry Men are fine but not all that compelling – the best is probably a young Dave Chappelle, who wants to be doing a lot more than just play the third most important sidekick to the titular character, which is certainly very obvious and understandable, especially since he likely signed onto this film under the belief that working with a comedic genius like Brooks would be a considerable boost to his career in the same way it had been for many young comedians in the past. The most disappointing aspect of Robin Hood: Men in Tights is that the funniest actors aren’t given much to do – Richard Lewis, Roger Rees and Dom DeLuise (doing a wonderful Marlon Brando parody), as well as Brooks himself as the hilarious Rabbi Tuckman, have a few very funny moments, but overall are pushed into the background, barely registering as anything other than pleasant presences, when in previous films these characters would be the heart of the entire production. Casting hilarious actors and not allowing them to have free reign is quite a change of pace for Brooks, whom we can only assume was acting under production demands since you can sense that there is a version of Robin Hood: Men in Tights that is as hilarious and irreverent as we all know it could have been, which would have likely have been the case had this film has been made a few decades previously when Brooks was able to create these eccentric stories.

It is not my intention to tarnish whatever legacy that this has managed to preserve, since it is by no means a travesty, but it is difficult to ignore the fact that Robin Hood: Men in Tights is a slight disappointment, and perhaps the moment we realized that Brooks had run his course as a director, a sentiment that he seemed to share since he made one further film before pursuing other endeavours within the entertainment industry that he helped define. It is not entirely bad, and there are several moments in which this film feels extremely promising, only falling apart in the moments where we can see that Brooks misjudged the approach to the humour, or the actual narrative foundation on which the film is built being extremely conventional, a far cry from the subversive, hilariously off-beat style we are used to seeing from Brooks in the majority of his previous films. There are undeniably some moments in this film in which we can see a lot of potential, and it is still very entertaining – it just feels like a pale imitation of the impeccable calibre of work we usually saw produced by Brooks, whose work is usually far more captivating and endearing than it is here. Robin Hood: Men in Tights has its moments of hilarity, but they are mostly exactly what we’d expect from a late-career film by Brooks, which is unfortunately not nearly as enticing as something made by him at his peak. However, even when making something slightly more disappointing, his work is still very entertaining, and there are still many merits that underpin this film, they just take slightly longer to uncover, which is to be expected from a film with this premise and approach to a very common folktale. It doesn’t diminish his legacy, but it makes us wonder about the potential possessed by this project and the sad reality that we couldn’t see what could have been a substantially better film.