The Princess Bride (1987)

Director: Rob Reiner

Cast: Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Chris Sarandon, Robin Wright

Have I Seen it Before: Well, sure. But this is where I am going to have to open up this review with a confession.

Did I Like It: Is this somehow going to be more controversial than my review of Halloween Ends (2022)? Ok. Truth time. I’ve never liked it as much as some people. Some people love this movie like it would be able to patch the hole in the ozone layer and always smell like freshly popped popcorn.

It’s a frequently funny film. There are large swaths where it is thrilling and heartwarming. Every inch of this film is designed to be likable, and it delivers on those goods… I think one could make the case that there is nothing particularly wrong with the film?

And yet?

Doesn’t it all seem a little too slim for it’s own good? Maybe complaining that the film is “too short” is praising the movie with faint damnation, but aren’t there like three dozen characters jammed into just over 90 minutes?

Isn’t every great, well-remembered moment of the movie just a catchphrase pre-packaged for the meme era? Do we really love “My name is Inigo Montoya” and “Have fun storming the castle,” or is it just that their both easily imitateable?

And I can get over all of those complaints, but somehow there are people who with great earnestness proclaim this as their favorite movie. There are people out there who have built their entire identity around this movie. We’re never likely to get a proper memoir from Cary Elwes, because he figured we were all good after he got through all of his stories from The Princess Bride. I see the appeal. I just don’t see that much of the appeal.

Is it just that I’m nuts?

Inconceivable, I’m sure.

Unbreakable (2000)

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Cast: Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Robin Wright-Penn, Spencer Treat Clark

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, man. It’s one of those key movie watching experiences of my life. It is the late fall of 2000. Florida is doing its very best to tear apart western civilization. I am sixteen and the notion that I can just go to the movies without having to concoct some kind of labyrinthine plan to physically get there* is a novel experience. Sure, the eventual twist ending (the first sign that Shyamalan would never be able to shake the need to include them) but at that moment, the film played me like a harp.

I spent the next several weeks insisting to anyone who would talk to me for longer than thirty seconds that they must go and see it. Many did; few liked it as much as I did, with the possible exception of Bill Fisher. We then spent the next two years trying to tap into the films vein in our own way.

Did I Like It: I may have tipped my hand a bitIt is, without a doubt, Shyamalan’s best film. Sure The Sixth Sense (1999) has its charms, Signs (2002) shows an unusual level of restraint, and Split (2017) is quite good (although it benefits highly from its connection to this film). But this is the purest, most direct version of what Shyamalan has to offer the movies.

It’s attempt at depicting a world where superheroes could be real dominated my imagination for a very long time. It’s story of a man coming to embrace the best parts of himself, which he had spent a lifetime trying to ignore is something that still sticks in my craw every time I watch it now. I would not be me without this movie.

I’d say something more about the film, but there’s very little chance any additional words would be equal to my feeling and esteem for it.

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Robin Wright, and (sigh, and not a good one) Jared Leto

Have I Seen it Before: Well, it's desperate to make me feel like this is a movie I’ve seen before, but…

Did I Like It: I’m absolutely the wrong crowd for this movie, but strangely, i liked it better than some other movies that shall go nameless. I’m not sure if that’s any kind of endorsement or not…

We are beset (or should I say we are receiving a bounty?) of “legacy-quels” lately, new entries in movie series that come roughly ten years or more since the last entry of the series. Older stars come back, more than likely for a quick paycheck. The movie usually has a mind to hand the baton to a new generation fo heroes that could carry on with additional sequels, should the exercise in nostalgia prove to be profitable. Many times there is some canonical jiggery pokery to remove more embarrassing entries from the collective consciousness. Creed (2015), Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Halloween (2018), Star Trek (2009), X-Men: Days Of Future Past (2014), Tron: Legacy (2010), and… ahem… Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull (2008). 

Some times the films are quite enjoyable, and inject new life into movie series long thought dead. Often Harrison Ford is in them. I’m still waiting for Die Hard In A Presidential Library, Son of Fugitive, and Still Witnessin’.

And so we are brought to Blade Runner 2049. I’m late to the party, mainly because it is with some shame that I admit that the original Ridley Scott-directed film has never done much for me. I’ve never really cared about picking apart the various different versions of the film. I’ve never really been concerned whether or not Deckard (Ford) is actually a replicant or not. If I’m reaching for a loose Phillip K. Dick adaption, I’m much more likely to reach for Total Recall (1990) or Minority Report (2002). 

So, when met with a legacy-quel to a film for which I don’t have a lot of affection, what is there for me to enjoy. Inevitably, this type of film trades in wholesale nostalgia for the previous films in the series, so if Villeneuve and company are doing the job Warner Bros. hired them to do, I’m not going to like what they are cooking. It’s nearly guaranteed.

And yet, the film does reach for more plot than fashion, and for enough of a new aesthetic (in parts) that I dare say I enjoyed myself. Does that mean the film is successful in its goals? I’m not entirely sure. You may have to ask someone with affection for Blade Runner. I’m not that guy.