The Princess Bride

As you watch this enchanting fantasy, feel free to be thrilled or to giggle, as you wish.

Patinkin, the most dazzling movie swordsman since Errol Flynn, steals the movie with his athletic grace and delivery of lines like: "My name is Inigo Montoya! Prepare to die!"

For parents who have felt as if they were approaching the Cliffs of Insanity while enduring the inanities of standard kiddie pictures, The Princess Bride may be a godsend.

Heroic fantasies, we often feel, should be lighter than air, hot as dragon fire, fast as a sword in sunlight. And that's mostly what we get from the delightful The Princess Bride -- along with some bracing humor and foolery.

The film works well enough, providing its fair share of laughs and thrills, and in technical terms it is by far Reiner`s most professional job of direction.

Based on William Goldman's novel, this is a post-modern fairy tale that challenges and affirms the conventions of a genre that may not be flexible enough to support such horseplay.

The Princess Bride easily transcends expectations, as a fantasy that has a few pertinent things to say about the genre, including the odd fact that the heroes of such things are often prettier than the heroines.

A unqualified success that blends New York wit with timeless storytelling; a risky piece of filmaking that never feels so.

...it's ultimately not difficult to see why The Princess Bride has become something of a classic in the years since its 1987 release.

...somehow spoofs the conventions of fantasy romance without teetering into irony.

In spirit The Princess Bride recalls The Neverending Story, which also was about a contemporary boy`s fantastic adventure. Reiner's film is likely to please adults more than kids and to last in memory more than most films this fall.

Mandy Patinkin, as Inigo Montoya, deserves special mention. Inigo is the one character in the film who contains real emotional depth, and Patinkin plumbs it.