The Princess Bride
Rob Reiner
1987
An elderly man narrates to his annoying grandson the story of The Princess Bride: A tale of pirates, giants, men with six fingers, Rodents Of Unusual Size, revenge seeking Spaniards and priests who cannot pronounce their R’s.
Hollywood used to make films like this. Magical, quirky, hilarious films that are so barmy they couldn’t work. But they did. They don’t make them now. The closest thing we have now is animation. It is fair (and quite easy) to say that Hollywood has gone off the boil in recent times but in all honestly this film is so finely ingrained into my childhood that they could make a carbon copy of it tomorrow and I would still think it doesn’t hold a candle to The Princess Bride.
I have seen it at least 50 times and still every time I watch it it makes me feel like a child again. Scared, amused and always entertained. I know it like I know music. I don’t just know the words; I know the rhythm to the words: how they say it and the tone of their voices and how many times Vizzini laughs before he drops dead. To critique a film you should at least try to be objective to some degree but with The Princess Bride it’s just impossible. It’s like asking a mother to pick faults in their children. They could say a few but these faults are also reasons why she loves them. It’s a brilliant, marvelous superb, thrilling gem of a film and any man who disagrees is a liar and doesn’t deserve the shoes in which he walks.
larkalong 