Review of The Princess Bride (1987) by Mjluth — 05 Jul 2014

The Princess Bride was originally a book written by William Goldman in 1973 and he turned it into a screenplay 10 years later. The movie, like the book is a classical story of true love, overcoming all the odds to find happiness, and it also happens to be one of the rare cases where the movie is as good as the book.

One of the things that makes this movie so great is the unique way that the story is told. All too often when a book is created into a movie it is just a retelling of the book without its own twist on the story or way to make it more than a retelling, and more often than not if a movie adds its own twist it completely ruins the story. The Princess Bride is an exception to that rule, the whole premise for the movie is a sick young boy, played by Fred Savage, and his grandfather, played by Peter Falk, gives him The Princess Bride for a present and starts to read it to him. This inventive way to tell the story allowed the writers to go from scenes from the book back to the grandson’s bedroom, adding humor and creating suspense. This combined with the fact that because the writer of the screenplay and the book was the same person, which helped keep the movie’s storyline very close to the book’s storyline, makes this movie better than any other movie I’ve seen that was based on a book.

Another thing that makes it such a good movie is it’s diversity in it’s themes. It’s largest theme that encompasses the whole is that true love conquers all. Now that is a theme that, although may not always be true in real life, we all love because it makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Another theme that it has is that the evil people in the world get what they deserve. This is another very watchable theme, who doesn’t like seeing the good guys win? The two very inspiring and heart-warming themes can make the audience get emotionally involved with the character in the movie. I found myself rooting for character and hoping that others died.

The final thing that makes this movie so incredible is the way they build the characters. The characters in the movie are not just cookie cutter characters. They all have a good and a bad side that is built up throughout the movie by their interaction with other characters. Even the hero of the story has a bad side, he cheats to win a battle of wits. The dynamics of the characters really add to the story.

Overall, The Princess Bride is an incredibly well done movie with great actors to play dynamic characters, touching themes, and a very unique way to tell the story. It is a must see for all of those who haven’t seen it and a movie you will want to watch again. If you don’t believe me or if you think it will be boring I leave you this quote from the movie. “Are you kidding? Its got fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles.