Stardust – Sappy Fairy Tale Turns Out Well Enough
Written: May 08 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: happy endings, magical world, Claire Danes, wraps up nicely
Cons: cheesy lines, could be funnier, soundtrack unmemorable
The Bottom Line: Stardust is a great adaptation of Neil Gaiman's novel and a good movie on its own.
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| t13monkeys's Full Review: Stardust |
“Feel good” movies are finally starting to make a comeback and with the success of Enchanted, Stardust easily picks up on this notion that the world doesn’t have to be a dark and sinister place, and that nice people are present in the world, love can exist, and happy endings are possible. Sure it’s escapist, but in a world continuously hounded by problems, sometimes escapism can be a nice thing.
Stardust is best known as a work by Neil Gaiman, the modern day fairy tale master, creator of Sandman, Coraline and a dearth of other works in the graphic novel genre. After many years of back and forth dialog between movie studios, Gaiman finally agreed to sell some rights to a few of his creations, resulting in Mirrormask, Beowulf and Stardust. Like most of his other movie works, Gaiman isn’t involved too much in the process and Stardust is mostly a studio creation under the pen and direction of Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake).
Stardust is a romantic fairy tale about Tristan (Charlie Cox) who tries to win the hand of Victoria (Sienna Miller) boasting to her that he would go as far as capturing a shooting star to earn her love. His journey to get the star takes him past a mysterious wall in England that acts as a portal into the fantasy kingdom of Stormhold, where he meets the star, Yvaine (Claire Danes). With evil forces hoping to capture the star and use her for her powers of immortality, Tristan must protect the star until he can safely return her to Victoria to win her love.
Stardust has almost absurdly cheesy dialog and is in a world that’s remarkably one-dimensional but at least manages to be filled with the kind of magic and wonder that Neil Gaiman is known for well incorporating in his stories. Tristan is your standard doe-eyed suitor that’s remarkably one-track minded, and the star played by Yvaine is sort of the sarcastic “oh why is this happening to me” girl that’s also a common motif. But being a traditional fairy tale is kind of what the movie pitches itself as, and if anything the key thing to realize is that Stardust isn’t going to pull any new punches. In the universe of Stardust there is no real concrete evil, self-serving interests might collide, but at the core, all the characters, even down to the witches like Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer) are not exactly spiteful.
This makes Stardust extremely shallow, yes, and at times a bit silly, but you know what? That’s ok. Sometimes it is nice to watch a movie where love does work out, where good guys win, and there’s no need to throw in unexpected tragedy or have the protagonist be an orphan with family issues and all that. Stardust might not break stereotypes in terms of happy endings, but compared to what’s out there, things come in cycles, and Stardust has its appropriate place in the movie world.
Casting is something I found a bit unfortunate with the movie. Claire Danes was not a bad choice for the radiant Yvaine, but Charlie Cox as the dashing but confused and at times, goofball Tristan doesn’t nearly have the dashing or heroic qualities that he should have. Then there’s the really weird part of Robert De Niro as Captain Shakespeare, the fearsome pirate by reputation alone, who is deep down really a pansy. It’s another weird casting where talent wasn’t so much the issue as just sheer appearances.
What Stardust could have used more of in the end was some better dialog, something a bit snappier and some humor also to give the characters more life. Instead, there’s mostly just an air of bemusement throughout the movie, which isn’t bad, but it would have helped things along greatly. In terms of action, there are some decent sequences near the end, making it a reasonably balanced date movie with enough for both parties, although it tends to be a bit more on the sappy side of things. Still, for a Gaiman work, it’s much better than the failure that was Mirrormask, and if you’re looking to rent a fantasy-book to movie adaptation, it’s a much better option than The Golden Compass. A worthwhile rent.
Recommended:
Yes
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t13monkeys
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