Boasting a supporting cast with the likes of Michelle Pheiffer, Robert DeNiro, Peter O’toole and Ricky Gervais – I feel like Stardust made a glorious effort to be something it wasn’t.
Let me preface the rest of this review by stating that I didn’t dislike Stardust. In fact, I have to admit it was a real treat to see a big screen fairy tale (in the true sense) that wasn’t computer generated and that didn’t have a giant green ogre.
Stardust, like any big screen fairy tale, begins by establishing the characters, story and setting in such a way that it asks its audience to please sit back and enjoy the ride. This of course ought to be expected of the audience when they purchase their tickets, but none the less, it is the common courtesy of the filmmakers to take 10 minutes of running time to get things set up for us. Why bring up something that’s a given? Because in this first ten minutes it is also the responsibility of the filmmakers to set the tone for the film.
I really thought they did a nice job. They took me to an unknown land, there were witches, a love story with a princess and a mystery. It develops further into another love story in which a young lad (the son of the gentleman who sets up the story after breaking the village rules to cross a wall to a forbidden magical land, only to fall in love with a princess who can never be with who ends up having a baby who she then sends to the “real” world to live with the father as she has been imprisoned by a witch – suspension of disbelief people!) commits to bringing home a fallen star for his one true love. This is all fine and good – and even noble, to deliver a true fairy tale. However, the nobility of such a gesture was soon diminished.
After the setup, in which we believe we are in for a classic happily ever after story, the film seems to veer off track at times; poking fun at itself and falling into mainstream modern humor (including DeNiro as a gay pirate, which was funny for about two minutes, not sure whether it was actually funny or if I was laughing thinking about the person who pitched the idea to DeNiro – or the look on that person’s face when he said yes). It was as though the writer/filmmaker (Matthew Vaughn – Producer of Snatch and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) was afraid of his own sincerity in telling this story that he reverted to The Princess Bride formula, which I might add was done ONCE brilliantly and set an unreachable bar. Then when he realized that people might catch on to this fall back plan and make comparisons he could never live up to so he decided to throw in some of his own ridiculous humor and even cast Ricky Gervais to essentially play his character from The Office in an attempt to connect to a modern, mainstream movie audience. I have to admit, I laughed at some of these moments, but they stood out like a sore thumb and jolted the ride a little bit. It’s like when you hit turbulence, it’s a little rocky, but kinda exciting – but in end you’d probably have been more pleased without it. The strength of the movie comes when it stays within the tried, tested and true formula of the fairy tale. The white knight saving the princess from the witches, yadda, yadda, yadda. It’s not a worn formula – it’s pleasant. It’s reminds us of being a kid and believing in those ideas. That’s why fairy tales work. We don’t believe them, but we want to so badly that we almost do.
I’ve not gone into plot details because in a review and without the use of adjectives in brilliant fashion, of which I am not capable, the story would not be done justice. It would sound pretentious. The story, when on track, is a great one. It’s original without getting too far ahead of itself. None of the performances really stood out, which is actually a compliment. In a story like this, we’re not relying on great performances, we’re relying on great characters driven by a great story and everybody did their job buying into that idea. Which is why all the actors (which the exception of Pheiffer) mentioned above probably have no more than 10 minutes screen time each and our hero is virtually an unknown. We don’t want to know our hero because we want to see ourselves in his shoes. We want to be the hero. Claire Danes, though known, does a nice job reminaing understated, so that the female audience can slip into her shoes and become that fallen star and the hero’s once true love.
It’s too bad this movie was virtually left in the dust by audiences this summer, but to be fair, the trailer and marketing campaign made you believe this was going to be a hokey mess. It was not.
It’s probably hard to tell where I stand on this film. I enjoyed it. As I said, it was a noble effort and didn’t fall flat on its face. It was refreshing for the most part and something that I would recommend gets a DVD rental for those of you looking for light adventure and a little romance.
3 stars out of 5
This is my first review. They’ll get better.
Let me preface the rest of this review by stating that I didn’t dislike Stardust. In fact, I have to admit it was a real treat to see a big screen fairy tale (in the true sense) that wasn’t computer generated and that didn’t have a giant green ogre.
Stardust, like any big screen fairy tale, begins by establishing the characters, story and setting in such a way that it asks its audience to please sit back and enjoy the ride. This of course ought to be expected of the audience when they purchase their tickets, but none the less, it is the common courtesy of the filmmakers to take 10 minutes of running time to get things set up for us. Why bring up something that’s a given? Because in this first ten minutes it is also the responsibility of the filmmakers to set the tone for the film.
I really thought they did a nice job. They took me to an unknown land, there were witches, a love story with a princess and a mystery. It develops further into another love story in which a young lad (the son of the gentleman who sets up the story after breaking the village rules to cross a wall to a forbidden magical land, only to fall in love with a princess who can never be with who ends up having a baby who she then sends to the “real” world to live with the father as she has been imprisoned by a witch – suspension of disbelief people!) commits to bringing home a fallen star for his one true love. This is all fine and good – and even noble, to deliver a true fairy tale. However, the nobility of such a gesture was soon diminished.
After the setup, in which we believe we are in for a classic happily ever after story, the film seems to veer off track at times; poking fun at itself and falling into mainstream modern humor (including DeNiro as a gay pirate, which was funny for about two minutes, not sure whether it was actually funny or if I was laughing thinking about the person who pitched the idea to DeNiro – or the look on that person’s face when he said yes). It was as though the writer/filmmaker (Matthew Vaughn – Producer of Snatch and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) was afraid of his own sincerity in telling this story that he reverted to The Princess Bride formula, which I might add was done ONCE brilliantly and set an unreachable bar. Then when he realized that people might catch on to this fall back plan and make comparisons he could never live up to so he decided to throw in some of his own ridiculous humor and even cast Ricky Gervais to essentially play his character from The Office in an attempt to connect to a modern, mainstream movie audience. I have to admit, I laughed at some of these moments, but they stood out like a sore thumb and jolted the ride a little bit. It’s like when you hit turbulence, it’s a little rocky, but kinda exciting – but in end you’d probably have been more pleased without it. The strength of the movie comes when it stays within the tried, tested and true formula of the fairy tale. The white knight saving the princess from the witches, yadda, yadda, yadda. It’s not a worn formula – it’s pleasant. It’s reminds us of being a kid and believing in those ideas. That’s why fairy tales work. We don’t believe them, but we want to so badly that we almost do.
I’ve not gone into plot details because in a review and without the use of adjectives in brilliant fashion, of which I am not capable, the story would not be done justice. It would sound pretentious. The story, when on track, is a great one. It’s original without getting too far ahead of itself. None of the performances really stood out, which is actually a compliment. In a story like this, we’re not relying on great performances, we’re relying on great characters driven by a great story and everybody did their job buying into that idea. Which is why all the actors (which the exception of Pheiffer) mentioned above probably have no more than 10 minutes screen time each and our hero is virtually an unknown. We don’t want to know our hero because we want to see ourselves in his shoes. We want to be the hero. Claire Danes, though known, does a nice job reminaing understated, so that the female audience can slip into her shoes and become that fallen star and the hero’s once true love.
It’s too bad this movie was virtually left in the dust by audiences this summer, but to be fair, the trailer and marketing campaign made you believe this was going to be a hokey mess. It was not.
It’s probably hard to tell where I stand on this film. I enjoyed it. As I said, it was a noble effort and didn’t fall flat on its face. It was refreshing for the most part and something that I would recommend gets a DVD rental for those of you looking for light adventure and a little romance.
3 stars out of 5
This is my first review. They’ll get better.
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