Movie Review

Stardust

"Stardust" seems to have come directly out of nowhere. I only did see the trailer recently for the very first time, and it looked kind of cute and charming in a PG-13 rated way. The movie itself just didn't do it for me though. In fact, it almost unseats "Pirates of the Carribean: At Worlds End" as being the most overblown and innocuous fantasy of the summer, and that's no easy feat.

The story is based on a novel by Neil Gaiman. It's about a young man named Tristan (Charlie Cox) whose desperately in love with a bitchy beauty named Victoria (Sienna Miller). He decides to go on a journey to prove his love, promising to return with a fallen star for her. His journey takes him to a wondrous but forbidden land beyond his village where, miraculously enough, he also meets a fallen star in the form of another hottie named Yvaine (Claire Danes). It is here that Tristan realizes that Yvaine is actually being sought by several people, including an evil witch named Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer), who needs it to become young again, and the sons of Lord Stormhold (Peter O'Toole), who need it to have any shot of being the successor to their father's throne. Tristan also encounters a gay pirate named Shakespeare (Robert DeNiro) and a trader named Ferdy the Fence (Ricky Gervais) along the way and learns a thing or two about what lovin' really is.

"Stardust" is a fantasy that stays pretty much in the mundane. Rather than surprise us, it just hacks together an unspectacular story based around characters we've already met before in other fairy tales. There's an old witch who wants to remain young again, a young man eager to fall in love, a beautiful damsel in distress, and several cunning but arrogant princes. I get that an old-fashioned fantasy needs characters to play a "type" more than a "personality," but can't you give them even a little twist of originality? They all populate a plot that is devoid of any real sense of wonder. I'm actually really surprised at how tame the special effects seemed. Other than a flying pirate ship and a few lame little spells from Lamia, there really isn't much to write home about here. The absence of any real excitement makes it even more obvious that the plot itself is predictable and as old as they come. The second the movie starts you know which two are going to fall in love, which ones are going to die, and which ones are going to get their comeuppance in the end.

This movie's worst problem however is that it comes across as being overlong, a tedious and talky 2 hour and 10 minute flick about a bunch of people trying to find the star in question. The movie spends way too much time trying to keep the supporting characters in the loop, even explaining things that the audience already knows. The casting ranges from inspired to bland to just plain bad. Michelle Pfeiffer comes off looking the best, devilishly playing Lamia the Witch. Robert DeNiro comes off the worst, embarrassing himself by playing a gay pirate prone to wearing frilly dresses. Everyone else, including Charlie Cox, Claire Danes and Sienna Miller are merely forgettable.

I like fantasy and I enjoy being taken to another world altogether. Just this movie reminded me a lot of last year's "Pan's Labyrinth," a supposed fantasy that barely had a shred of wonder in it. That movie was critically acclaimed and most audiences loved it, which so far seems to be much of the case here as well. So I don't know. Maybe there are some fantasies whose greatness just goes over my head. Who knows! All I can say is that "Stardust" bored me. It bored me a lot.

Craig's Grade: D+

A	10.9%
B	41.8%
C	31.8%
D	15.3%
F	0.3%