Film Review: The Princess Bride (1987) is as Outdated as it is Boring

Often seen as a classic of the fantasy genre, The Princess Bride is a film whose reputation is built off nostalgia alone. An unbiased look at this 1980s romance/adventure flick exposes it for the shallow, distasteful, and outdated film it is.

Rob Reiner’s adaptation of William Goldman’s romance novel begins in a sick child’s bedroom. The kid (Fred Savage) is annoyed to hear that his grandfather (an unconvincing Peter Falk) is visiting. Even worse: he has brought a gift. For some reason, grandpa thought his grandkid would be interested in a romance novel which, if you’ve read it, doesn’t even get steamy or smutty. So, what is the point exactly? The grandfather begins to read the story to the understandably reluctant tween, and we are off to a magical fantasy world of giants and big rats.

The real story of the film centers on a farm boy named Wesley (Cary Elwes) and the princess named Buttercup (Robin Wright). Buttercup doesn’t exactly look like a princess, as she dresses like a peasant and spends most of her time on the farm, bossing Wesley around. And that’s just the first problem with the film. Through a voiceover, grandpa tells us that Buttercup's relentless bossiness is the basis of a romantic relationship spoken in code. In this subtle lover's dialect, “As you wish” translates to “I love you.” As interesting as this would be to explore domination and submission in Medieval romantic partnerships, Reiner seems reluctant to dive too deep into the kinky or erotic nature of the dynamic he has introduced. Instead, he opts to keep the relationship wholesome and mutually edifying, to the story’s detriment.

Soon after this "romantic" relationship is established, Wesley takes off on a long journey and is lost at sea, presumed dead at the hands of a ruthless pirate. Buttercup, devastated, is now forced to marry a man she does not love, a prince named Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon). Humperdinck is a true weasel of a character but is unfortunately not cast or acted well enough to truly flesh out the Donald Trump parallels that the film is surely trying to depict. Yes, the prince conspires with rival nations, deploys the national guard to kick out squatters, and “doubles the guard” to protect his castle walls. But Chris Sarandon plays the character with too much flare and gravitas to make the Trump analogy work. As a result, the audience must do too much of the heavy lifting to make the connection.

After vowing never to love again, a mourning princess is kidnapped by three hired mercenaries, and the adventure is off and running. The villainous trio are, to the film’s credit, fairly diverse. There’s the giant Fezzik, the Spaniard Inigo, and Vizzini, the leader. They are followed by a mysterious masked man who we immediately guess is Wesley well before the mask comes off. It is his mission to climb the cliffs of insanity, outduel the Spaniard, best the giant, outsmart Vezzini, deliver the princess back to her kingdom through the mildly treacherous fire swamp, and stop her from marrying the awful prince Humperdinck.

Buttercup (Robin Wright) and Wesley (Cary Elwes) prepare for battle (Credit: Disney)

This all sounds exciting enough. In fact, it sounds delightful. But the script is too offensive, dated, and dull to keep the audience engaged. At one point, Inigo offers to give his word “as a Spaniard” and Wesley responds with “no good. I’ve known too many Spaniards.” The implication that Spaniards are somehow dishonest people is quite appalling, and any decent person would hesitate to show this film to their children. At another point, Wesley tells the unconscious giant Fezzik to “dream of large women.” Such dialogue leaves the viewer unsure which is worse: the sexism or the body shaming.

But there are deeper problems with the script as well. Attempts at humor are plentiful but they rarely hit the mark. A silly-sounding voice is played off as a joke not once but twice in the movie. But neither time does a character quip “is that your real voice?” The voice itself is the only funny thing about the scene; there’s no comedic banter to go with it. In another “humorous” moment, two characters roll down a hill for an extended period of time. Once again, the writers opted not to include any hilarious banter or ironic quips from either character. The scene really could have used a “we’re still falling!” to bring the moment home. It’s almost as if Rob Reiner expects the absurdity of the situation itself to make us laugh, and fails to realize such humor only works when the moment is saturated with quippy one liners about the moment's absurdity, such as “well, that just happened” or “I did not see that coming.”

The romance is likewise woefully short of noteworthy in this film. It relies heavily on the sexist “damsel in distress” trope for the first portion of the adventure. Then, upon finally discovering her true love is alive, Buttercup is immediately infatuated with him, giving up her strong female independence in an instant. Her character is tragically programmed for romance from the start; a helpless cog in the machine that treats “true love” as inevitable and female autonomy as an afterthought. The man, toxic as ever, verbally abuses his love while in disguise and even threatens to strike her (“that was a warning, highness,” he says menacingly). But all is forgiven as soon as his identity is revealed. It’s a foregone conclusion that the two will end up married, despite the obvious red flags. Buttercup deserved better.

The Princess Bride will not go down as one of the better fantasy films. It glorifies masculine heroes, reinforces negative stereotypes about rodents, does not utilize a single green screen, and fails to speak on income inequality in the Medieval classist feudalistic system of government it depicts. There should be a lot to love in this type of fantasy adventure, but very little of this potential is capitalized on. Hopefully a Disney reboot will redeem the source material soon.