What I Watched -- Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

I have probably seen Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves at least a zillion times.  Maybe even a zillion and one.  Watching it is something I can do almost totally brainlessly, since I know the story so well.

But watching an old movie for the first time in a long time is always interesting, because some scenes are just as funny or poignant as they were before, and some are completely stale.  It has also been interesting to see what has happened to the various stars of the movie in the intervening 25 years.  The lovely (if somewhat helpless) Lady Marian, played by Mary Elizabeth Mastrontonio, has gone on to do mostly small screen roles.  We all know where Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman, and Alan Rickman have been, but who knew that  probably the most famous character Alan Rickman would ever play would come from a children's book?  Then there's Christian Slater, who had some pretty decent stuff through the rest of the 1990s, but then just seemed to disappear.  He's still working, but if you want to find him, you'll have to look for classics like Hot Tub Time Machine.

I was amused, especially after some recent travel, with the scene near the end where everyone is entering the castle grounds.  The guards standing at the gate repeatedly shout, "No blades, no bows!  Leave your weapons here."  It felt like a slightly more refined version of a TSA screening at the airport.

Bottom line: even if it's not as good as it once seemed, it's always fun to come back to an old favorite every now and then.