Stardust

You had me at similar to The Princess Bride. It is rare that a movie is made that can be seriously compared to that classic. Then throw in that the director is Matthew Vaughn who is the man behind one of my favorite movies of the last few years, Layer Cake, and my presence was guaranteed. Did Stardust live up to whatever insane expectations my brain concocted? Probably not, but it was still a really good film that nearly captured the same tone that made The Princess Bride so memorable.

Stardust is not the most easily definable film I have ever seen. Is adult fantasy a movie genre or just a category of pornography? This was a fun 2-hour journey into a different world without pandering to the younger folk. The characters were interesting, the acting was strong, and the story held together even with all the ridiculousness flying around. I am going to put the success of this movie on Matthew Vaughn. There may be some bias from my love of Layer Cake, but he keeps this movie steady by concentrating on the characters instead of the magical world they inhabit. Skipping Robert De Niro for the time being, the most memorable performance clearly came from Michelle Pfeiffer. I praised her work in Hairspray where she played an evil bitch, well this time she is an actual evil witch and plays it to the limit. She seems to glory in stooping around as the dried up aging witch. I wanted to talk about Pfeiffer before De Niro because I still have no idea how to judge his work here. Robert De Niro gay sky pirate is definitely something that stays with you. The problem is that it is so distracting that it is the only thing I remember from those scenes. That’s Vito Corleone/Travis Bickle/Jimmy Conway/Neil McCauley talking with a lisp and wearing a dress. Umm…at least its better than wasting his talents on Meet the Parents. Charlie Cox and Claire Danes have just the right chemistry as the bickering leads that eventually live happily ever after. For Danes this may have been as good as her work in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines but I don’t want to go on record with that. I have no idea who Charlie Cox is but from this point forward I can use Stardust as a reference. The rest of the characters are predominately there for comic relief, which is okay since most of the jokes work. You have the 100-year old man who uses martial arts to guard the wall, all of the princes killing each other, Pfeiffer turning the goat into a man who acts like a goat and turning a man into a woman who is immediately intrigued by his new female body, De Niro trying really hard to be butch in front of his crew, and all of Ricky Gervais’ too few scenes. If only there was Andre the Giant, this could have been a classic movie.

I already know that Stardust will be a film that I will watch over and over again once it pops up on cable. It has just enough depth to so the story works but never takes itself seriously. All the actors are having fun which always helps with this type of movie. Plus I now have another director whose work I can eagerly anticipate. I can't ask for much more than that.

8 out of 10