Entertaining, but not that great

Rating: 6/10 (17 June 2006)

I first saw this movie in 1993 as the film study part of our 10th grade English course. I liked it at the time, but not overly so. But movies have something taken out of them when you have to watch it with the means of studying it.
I know it is spoke highly of, so I decided to rent it to watch it again since I love fairy tales and satire and am much more of a movie buff than I was at 15.
I have to say, while I was entertained throughout, I still feel, after 13 years, much the same as I did then. Often my opinions change after so much time, but not in this case. It had its funny moments, but I just felt like it wasn't quite there. There were funny parts about it, but it wasn't consistent. Buttercup had no humorous aspect whatsoever which made the mood confusing. It isn't as though I can't appreciate subtlety, but I felt that after some comical scenes with Westly and Inigo, the characters didn't remain funny. It seemed indecisive with humour in spurts so that otherwise serious people would occasionally make funny remarks.
I think my overall feeling is that I don't feel pulled towards having watched a comedy or a magical fairy tale. I feel a little lost. I think it's not as funny as it was supposed to be. It wasn't full of jokes that didn't work. The ones they had were good. There just weren't that many jokes to begin with. If Buttercup had been more of an airhead as she was supposed to be in the book, it might have opened the door for more humour.
I still enjoyed the film, but I feel it fell short of what it was intended to be.