Quote Quoting Morris Schæffer (view post)
I didn't like it. More tomorrow.
So yeah The Princess Bride. I was aware of the sort of movie that it was, and I certainly knew of its reputation, but as soon as I saw Peter Falk walking into Fred Savage's room, sitting down next to his bed and grabbing a book, I knew it was going to be, well possibly not for me. I realized that none of what I was about to see was actually happening, it's the kid acquiring a mental picture because of the tale that's being read to him. Bridge to Terabithia did it, The Neverending Story also, and The Chronicles of Narnia too is a tale of kids bored, pretending there's a better world than war-ravaged Europe, and off they go, whisked to a magical land that's entirely borne from their imagination. It's pretending, I can imagine we all did it when we were young, and perhaps still do, but it takes me out of the moment almost immediately. It'd be like The Lord of the Rings ending with Elijah Wood sitting on a chair back in the shire, mumbling something along the lines of "Damn, that sure would have been sweet, too bad I didn't have the balls to actually go on this journey. Oh well." For sure, I exagerate and it's not literally the same situation, but still. The Princess Bride actually cuts back and forth a few times in the beginning which undermined my ability to suspend disbelief even further. Beauty and the Beast 1991 also starts with voiceover, but as soon as that's done with, it segues into the movie proper, never again, as far as I recall at least, returning to David Ogden Stier's narrator.

And the whole movie plays out as such, it's never gripping or engaging to the point that I was really on board with any of it. It's extremely light weight and devoid of any sort of major stakes. [
Show Spoiler
]. It feels like a recreation, a land imagined by the boy, and thus justifiably spartan in its setting and facile in the way it unfolds, but not something that swept me along sadly. Sure, I enjoyed Patinkin's Inigo Montoya, but felt no closure, no sense of satisfaction when he got his revenge. Although I had to chuckle when Montoya got stabbed, seemingly resulting in a fatal wound, but then somehow pulled himself together for another round because that's what the boy would have wanted.

This must be the first damsel in distress movie in which the damsel doesn't appear to be in any distress at all. Or if she did, that it wouldn't really matter to me what happened to Buttercup.

✦✦[+]