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The reason for the distance between traditional film score collectors and Knopfler's The Princess Bride is the same as their reason for laughing off the film when they still saw it on the shelves of video rental stores years later. The music is such a dedicated slice taken right from the center of the corny Princess Bride cake that you can't help but remember the ridiculous circumstances of the film (and the age at which you saw it). Performed by only two individuals (Knopfler and Guy Fletcher), the score won't blow you away with sonic depth. Instead, it steals your heart with two opening cues of sweet and romantic acoustic guitar performances. These delicately plucked cues are quite lovely, with the kind of friendly personality that renders them a regular accompaniment to wedding receptions. The wishy-washy, echoing recording of the guitar, with its soothing synthesized accompaniment, appropriately puts the listener into almost a dreamy state in these two cues (as well as "A Happy Ending"). The same phenomenon occurs with the airy keyboarding in "Morning Ride", "Friend's Song," and "Guide my Sword," which often overwhelm the soundscape with their gleaming, major-key goodness. It is film score easy listening at its easiest during much of its length. Unfortunately, the album is broken up by a handful of unlistenable cues for action scenes, including "Cliffs of Insanity," "Rodents of Unusual Size," and "Revenge." The "Florin Dance" is another extremely difficult experience. These troubles arise mostly because the electronics couldn't produce varied or powerful enough action music without exposing the silly and dumb tones that often defined orchestral samples of the era. Because they are so incredibly cheap to the ears of anyone who has heard far more capable synthetic imitations since then, such cues can easily get on the nerves of the album's listener. Nevertheless, the album still contains at least twenty minutes of highly enjoyable, soft romance material, and it is capped off by a song rendition of Knopfler's title theme performed with a laid back style by Willy DeVille. The album is readily in print even though it was a very early Warner Brothers CD venture (with all the usual warnings about how to correctly place your CD back into its case), and it remains a strong seller even after twenty years. Overall, The Princess Bride is an important piece of late-80's film music history, albeit for just the younger generation, but anyone who still has a piece of that kid at heart could easily find enjoyment in this album.  ****   @Amazon.com: CD or Download

Total Time: 39:26