Much like a Twinkie, “The Princess Bride” is still fresh, moist and tasty even 13 years after its initial release.
Rob Reiner’s inventive comedic fantasy, apart from the “Monty Python” films, probably has the largest cult following of any comedy from the past two decades. Eminently quotable, “The Princess Bride” will inevitably cause a room of viewers to silently mouth the dialogue along with the characters, which is not a displeasing achievement, considering all the forgettable drivel released each year.
Reiner keeps the story moving along fluidly and the complicated plot easy enough to understand. Westley (Cary Elwes) is a stable boy who falls in love with Buttercup (Robin Wright). Before their love can be realized, however, Westley finds himself kidnapped by pirates. Hearing of Westley’s death, Buttercup is engaged to marry Prince Humperdink, a cad with less than good intentions for his new bride.
When Buttercup herself is kidnapped by a gang of villains, who should come to the rescue but Westley, disguised as the “Dread Pirate Roberts”? Of course, many hilarious hijinks ensue as Buttercup is recaptured, freed and lost again.
Elwes’ performance here is very likely the best of his career (not a hard feat, considering his stinky roles in more recent films such as “The Crush”). Wright has little to do but to look beautiful and stare longingly at the camera, but princesses in fairy tales usually don’t have considerably proactive roles anyway.
The rest of the cast is loaded with actors recognizable to all those not in a coma during the ’80s, and generally speaking, they do a decent job. Industrious film actor Wallace Shawn, who has appeared in more than 40 films, plays the maniacal Sicilian criminal Vizzini with his usual flair and personality, while Mandy Patinkin brings dignity and quiet humor to his role as Inigo Montoya, the Spanish swordsman. Deceased WWF legend Andre the Giant is sweetly funny, though at times unintelligible, as Fezzik the giant.
Billy Crystal, Peter Falk (of “Columbo” fame), Fred Savage and Christopher Guest (“This is Spinal Tap”) all make cameo appearances, but their performances are not the strongest part of the film. The script by William Goldman, who also wrote the novel, is filled with superb lines and excellent biting wit. Combined with Reiner’s steady hand directing the film, Goldman’s characters are not merely actors playing characters, but heroes and villains that could quite possibly have come straight from any child’s storybook.
All in all, “The Princess Bride,” much like “The Goonies” or “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” is a kind of movie that appealed to children of the ’80s yet retains its fun and magic today. Not going to the video store and seeing it again would be, well, inconceivable!