I went to a screening of Stardust last night courtesy of my favorite bookstore and the Brattle Theatre. Now, as most of you know, I am a huge Gaiman fan, so I've been looking forward to this for a while. I love fantasy movies and there have been few and far between, besides Pan's Labyrinth, which I adore.
It's been years since I read Stardust so I went into the movie having forgotten most of the plot. The movie promised to be chock full of stars including Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro, and Claire Danes, with some sweet pop-ins by Ricky Gervais and Rupert Everett. The main character, Tristan, is played by Charlie Cox whom I have never heard of, but looks pretty cute in the posters.
Tristan is in love with the beautiful Victoria. (A complete aside: I know Victoria is kind of a "stuffy" name to have but, man, I can't remember the last time a Victoria has been a good/decent character. Give a girl a break, will ya?) She is all haughty and would rather have dashing Humphrey (who is played by someone who looks weirdly like Cary Elwes) but she is not adverse to Tristan's advances either because, face it, he's pretty adorable. In a moment of drunken bravado, Tristan vows to bring Victoria back a fallen star to prove his love for her and sets off on an adventure over the wall that separates the town of Wall in the real world and the magical realm of Stormhold. The star, it turns out, is corporal and is named Yvaine, played very nicely by Claire Danes (who I usually don't care for but she is pretty likable here). Michelle Pfeiffer makes for a wickedly fun witch, named Lamia, who is also after the fallen star for her own evil reasons, but it's Robert De Niro, as Captain Shakespeare, who steals the movie in some unforgettable scenes. I've just finished watching Godfather, Part 2, so it's quite a shocker!
So, how was the movie? I liked it a lot. It was cute, sweet, funny, all-in-all, a good time. Some small nit-picky things bothered me but I'm a geek. Someone likened it to the Princess Bride on IMDB and that's pretty accurate. The overall effort was very nice and I would recommend this movie to anyone looking for a fun movie. I was happy with it and give it a near perfect four out of five bunnies!
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