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robin hood kevin costner.jpg

Celebrating The Greatest Movie Star That Ever Lived: Kevin Costner's 'Robin Hood' Turns 25

By Joe Starr | Career Assessments | June 14, 2016 |

By Joe Starr | Career Assessments | June 14, 2016 |


It’s a milestone in cinema today. The 1991 classic Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is old enough to rent a car.

So on this glorious day, let’s take a moment to reflect on the Prince of Early 90’s Epics. The legendary archer that danced with wolves, had gills and delivered the mail because America.

Let’s talk Kevin Costner.

Hit the music.

These days, Costner is best known as a supporting actor in two terrible Superman movies. But there was a time, my friends- a glorious time, when he was the god damn king of our box office and hearts and minds.

Most people would point to classics like Bull Durham and Field of Dreams as the beginning of Costner’s climb to stardom, but that’s not the ascent I’m interested in. I’m interested in Kevin Costner the Legend, and that starts with Dances With Wolves.

Lets take a moment to appreciate a time before Michael Bay when a movie like this could be made and watched without a trace of irony. Dances is easily one of the top five White Guy Becomes King of The Natives He Loves films of all time, and it propelled Kevin Costner into a bizarre and self important career path that defined the lives of all real Americans forever — even the ones that hadn’t been born yet.

Dances leads us to Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Every frame of this movie is brilliant and if you disagree, you can get fucked. I hope you are damned to an eternity of Charmin Bear commercials on an eternal loop.

Everything about this ridiculous movie is perfect, from Christian Slater pumping up the volume as Robin’s angsty brother to a small child asking Morgan Freeman why God painted him.

The only bad thing about this movie is that it didn’t permanently resolve issues between Islam and the West, but I’m pretty sure it at least led to some peace talks. Seriously, Azeem might have been the sidekick, but that was by design: everyone always loves the cool sidekick more than the main guy, and this cool side kick was heavily religious and Islamic.

In 1991, the toy at the top of every suburban white kid’s Christmas list was an Azeem action figure. Thank you, Kevin Costner. You are Dances With Wolves in real life.

After Robin Hood, Costner moves on to some garbage movies like JFK and The Bodyguard and whoooo cares.

Because next on this man’s legendary journey is WATERWORLD, the tale of a man with gils in a world that is all water and there are jetskis? It’s easiest to call it Wet Mad Max, but even that isn’t 100 percent accurate.

Waterworld is such an important movie that it has left a permanent mark in the world of theme park live action stunt shows and also your heart.

The future … THE POLAR ICE CAPS HAVE MELTED.

Yeah. Kevin Costner handled Islamophobia AND global warming before I was old enough to drive. He’s a god damn hero.

Also, Jean Tripplehorn is a hot lady.

Which brings us to Costner’s masterpiece.

To say that this is the best movie that has ever been made doesn’t do this film justice.

Kevin Costner is a post apocalyptic wanderer that finds a postman uniform and becomes a symbol of hope. And Tom Petty is in the movie and they keep suggesting that it’s actually Tom Petty which means Tom Petty is immortal.

Patriotism. Courage. How much mail can a dead postman carry? One time in high school I was sick for a week and we had an HBO free trial and this movie was on for 80% of it. I saw The Postman 12 times that week, and I’m a better man for it.

He’s just a drifter that found a bag of mail? Hell no. He’s Kevin Costner.

And between 1991 and 1997, he was the greatest and most important movie star that has ever lived. And in my heart, it’s always somewhere between 1991 and 1997.

Joe Starr is a writer and comedian with an album called Heroic Effort on Itunes and a funny book about pro wrestling called Leg Drop at Devastator. Follow him on Twitter.