The Princess Bride

I have heard it said online recently that The Princess Bride is a movie that is a bit overpraised. That a lot of the love it gets is not proportionate to its actual quality. And my response to that, wholly justified upon rewatching it, was "Of course it's overpraised! It would be weird if it wasn't!" The 1980's was a pretty good time for sci-fi and action movies. As far as comedies go, I think it's one of the worst periods in film history. Literally the cream of the crop was The Naked Gun, and that was a cheap and shoddy movie. Most comedy was like Police Academy or Back To School or Ferris Bueller (which by the way is also overpraised and frankly does not deserve its love). But The Princess Bride was a charming, clever movie in an era devoid of those. Of course people are gonna remember and love it, even if it isn't actually perfect.

Rewatching it also reminded me greatly of how influential it was to my own comic book work, specifically my Gilda And Meek prequel "The Pontue Legacy". The Princess Bride is a rare franchise that gets my creative juices flowing just by watching and being wowed at it. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine does the same, and so did the first two seasons of Twin Peaks. Not too many other projects put me in a writing frame of mind but I feel up to mischief now, which is a good feeling.

And seeing the catchphrases in context are just perfect and add to the experience. I mentioned in a recent review that the movie Speed was a "crowdpleaser". If a theater full of people didn't get on the feet and cheer and applaud at Inigo Montoya telling Count Rugen, "I want my father back, you son of a bitch!" I'd be surprised. It doesn't matter that the very large rats and eels looks cheap and fake, and that the sets are clearly done on a tight budget. The movie is so magical that stuff doesn't matter. And let me put that fact into a modern context: It shouldn't matter for current movies either. A lot of current genre films are so obsessed with making realistic and believable effects, but they still forget to put the magic in the movies anyways. It's a feeling you pass on to the audience, and big budgets and visual effects have nothing to do with it.

Upon rewatching the film decades later my one negative note is that the Grandson (played by Fred Savage in his breakout role) is far more annoying than I remembered. But Peter Falk as the Grandfather is so great because he addresses concerns a little kid would have with the story. Like that the eels don't eat Buttercup in that moment. Or him spoiling that Humperdinck, like many dinks before him, actually lives. He tells the "Good Parts" version of the story without us having to deal with William Goldman's nonsense.

I think the scene that is most interesting to me now is where Count Rugel is torturing Westley in the Pit of Despair and he deadpans that he wants him to describe what he's feeling in the name of science. And he asks him politely to please be accurate because it's for posterity. That scene is WAY ahead of its time. Yeah, it's being played for laughs. But a modern project would totally make that how a serial killer operates. I see a LOT of Mads Mikkelsen's version of Hannibal Lecter in that moment, in the pleasantness and curiosity of the horrible experience his victim is going through. I don't know if modern reviewers really take much note of that scene (other than to laugh at it) but deadly serious projects have done the exact same thing decades later, except they aren't asking you to find it funny. Or if you do, to also be terrified of it. It's very interesting.

I've read the book, and I frankly don't much like it. I got what Goldman was trying to get across with the whole "Good Parts Version" of the fake story his teacher supposedly used to read to him. But him revealing a lot of the bad parts of the full version breaks a lot of the magic. His version of the ending is just obnoxious. And far as we know, it's the same ending as the Grandfather is reading in the book. Except the Grandfather tells the Grandson a proper ending instead. The whole book was meta and almost a vanity project for William Goldman. The guy even made up a fat son he didn't have in relating his fake relationship to the made-up book.

The book isn't trying to convince you of the story's reality, so you can just enjoy the story. Goldman wrote the screenplay too so it's weird to me the movie is so far superior to the book.

The reason the movie is special isn't just because it was a rare clever comedy from that era. But even if comedy has matured in the meantime and routinely gotten as clever as this is, they still won't make a movie like this anymore. Simply because the idea of asking an audience to make believe or use their imagination is antithetical to the "Make it real!" mandate that has infected and ruined all fiction. We never had a movie like The Princess Bride when it came along. And we sadly can't expect another one in the future either. It was way ahead of its time in its cleverness. And it's way behind the times in believing a good story is really all that matters. I love and value this movie and I always have. And it doesn't matter if it IS overpraised and not as high-quality as a lot of modern stuff. It's special and it matters. *****.