This week in my classic cinema review, I am talking about the well-known 1987 family favorite, The Princess Bride. It may have been a while since you have seen this quotable movie or you may have never even seen it (the horror!), but let’s try to remember what made this film popular and whether it has lost its luster over time.

The film starts with a young boy (Fred Savage), who is home sick and is visited by his grandfather (Peter Falk). The young boy clearly has a distant relationship with his grandfather and is annoyed when his grandfather starts reading him a story called “The Princess Bride.” The story is set in a fictional, English-esque, medieval-esque locale, where a beautiful girl named Buttercup (Robin Wright) constantly torments her farm boy, Westley (Cary Elwes). Eventually the pair fall in love and Westley sets off to find his fortune. He never finds that fortune, though, as he is killed by the Dread Pirate Roberts.

While Buttercup is distraught by the loss of her true love, she reluctantly accepts the proposal of Prince Humperdink (Chris Sarandon). Before she is married to Prince Humperdink, she is captured by the eccentric trio Vizzini (Wallace Shawn), Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin), and Fezzik (Andre the Giant). As the trio attempts to ignite a civil war by murdering Buttercup and framing it on a rival kingdom, the Dread Pirate Roberts outwits all of them and takes Buttercup as his own prisoner.

Later, Dread Pirate Roberts identity is revealed, Inigo Montoya avenges his father’s death, and everyone lives happily ever after. Oh, and the boy and his grandfather are best friends at the end.

Is this movie as good as you remembered it in your childhood? Nope, but that does not mean that it is not worth re-watching. One of the biggest differences from my childhood viewing experience and my recent viewing experience is the amount of times that I laughed. I fondly remembered the movie as a laugh-out-loud comedy, but it took about twenty minutes this time around to elicit a laugh. There still were humorous parts of this movie (the physical comedy of the hill-falling scene stands out in my mind), but there were long stretches of unfunny parts.

With my recent mature, critical viewing of the movie, the other part that stood out as particularly poor was the tone of the movie. Unlike other modern spoof movies (Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, Black Dynamite, etc.), The Princess Bride attempts to inject seriousness and romance, to its detriment.

Where The Princess Bride is strongest is the way it has so deeply been ingrained in our pop culture. So many quotes in this movie are still being used to this day (my favorite: “You keep using that, I do not think it means what you think it means”).

If your looking to relive your childhood or just in the mood for a silly movie, grab a dusty VHS of The Princess Bride.