Yeah I Seen It : Stardust

I remember seeing a preview for this awhile back and thought it looked like it could be fun and something Becky would enjoy as well. It got generally good reviews with several of them referencing The Princess Bride. Some said a Princess Bride it was not. Others called it a Princess Bride for the current generation, which might be a bit much. I could see why they might speak of it in similar fashion, though Stardust was perhaps a bit more fantastical and dark in nature.

The movie is based on a Neil Gaiman novel of the same name. The basic plot is that a young man wishes to prove his love to some evil snotty bitch by finding a star they saw fall from the sky. This journey takes him into a forbidden magical realm and yeah verily some nasty trouble as well. As it turns out the star is not a hot lump of rock but rather a hot lump of flesh in the form of Claire Danes. After an initial adversarial moment the two of them head off back towards his home. Their progress is impeded by a group of witches who want the star for nefarious purposes. There is also a subplot in which the king of this realm is having a bit of a problem deciding which of his formerly 7 sons will take his throne, and sends them off on a quest to find an amulet, which just so happens to currently be in the possession of the star. The non living sons make frequent screentime in the form of ghosts generally to great amusement.

Speaking of Neil Gaiman, I've read a two of his other books, American Gods and Anansi Boys, both of which I quite enjoyed. AG I would recommend to almost anyone. I also recently watched a bbc miniseries adaptation of his book Neverwhere. It was interesting, and I might like to read the book at some point. But the acting and of course video production standards were quite poor. Not the case in Stardust of course. They had some fun special effects like a really cool glowing effect for Claire's character on occasion and of course lots of magic being tossed around. The important actors/actresses did a great job conveying emotion and expression. De Niro had a hilarious dance routine. I definitely left the movie satisfied, tho it did seem a bit long mayhaps.

Rating: 4.25