Only (slight) saving grace is Cary Elwes

Rating: Null/10 (31 May 2006)

Let me just start out by saying to the legions of fans that I just did not find this movie to be that good. Now, don't get me wrong...I love a lot of 80s movies, AND Monty Python, AND I have a pretty good sense of humor. All the rabid fans of "The Princess Bride" seem to use those as guidelines for who likes this movie, but I'm not buying it. This just did not do ANYTHING for me.
My college roommate was shocked and appalled freshman year that I had never seen, or even heard of, "The Princess Bride." So, she had me set aside some time to watch it with her. Let's just say it was like this: have you ever been watching something, and thought "when does this get good?" That was exactly what I was thinking by about 20 minutes in. I gave it a fair shake: I'd never heard of it except for the glowing reviews of my roommate, and we also have pretty similar tastes in movies for the most part, so I was expecting it to be at least fairly good if she liked it THAT much. Ah, geez, was I wrong. It was all I could do to sit through this. I won't go summarizing the entire movie, but these are my main points:
1. Cary Elwes is pretty good as Westley. But then again, I like him. I didn't really like any of the other characters at all, especially not Buttercup. I didn't even really want Westley to end up with her.
2. This whole "quotability factor" is blown way out of proportion. Especially this "inconceivable!" line that everyone thinks is so great...only mildly amusing at best.
3. The sheer repetitiveness of all the "Prepare to die" and "Inconceivable" stuff is ridiculous and tiresome (it gets that way VERY quickly). Even the oddly endearing "As you wish"...you just get tired of hearing it. All the "un-funniness" really just takes away from the few amusing parts.
4. When it comes down to it, I was just bored. The story is so up-and-down, all over the place...I don't know how a child could sit through this, when I was waiting for it to end before the midpoint.
Just my opinion...this movie is WAY over-rated.