STARDUST

Director: Mathew Vaughan (Layer Cake, production work)
Starring: Claire Danes, Charlie Cox, Michelle Pheiffer, and the DeNiro

Stardust is a (moderately) fun romp through a modern-style fantasyland. A satire of sorts (although unfortunately it's utterly devoid of any real satirical theme), Stardust tells the story of a young man who enters a magical kingdom and gets swept up in an adventure. Perhaps a better way to put it is that rather than a satire, it's a fantasy adventure with a different tone. It's a tongue-in-cheek romp, rather than another one of those painfully "all-encompassing" adventure that most modern fantasy stories aspire to. Wonderfully in my opinion, the "fate of the world" does not seem to be at stake in this film.

The plot is marginally interesting, although I won't bother with details, as most of them are rather arbitrary. In fact, much of the entire story feels arbitrary. I've never read the source material (a Neil Gaimen book), but I suspect that's to blame. Although it is a director's responsibility to change material that misses the mark, so Mr. Vaughan isn't going to get out of this entirely.

Now despite these script complaints, I will add there are still things to enjoy here. Most of the fun comes from oddball moments (like DeNiro's gay pirate character) rather than gripping story points, but there are enough fun, oddball moments to make up for the plot definciencies. The direction is at times acceptable, but at others it totally fails - more than a couple of scenes were nearly pointless. Even the acting is uneven - Claire Danes gives a fine performance, although Pheiffer does the best job (as an ugly witch looking to regain her lost youthful looks). The boy (nominally the main character) is utterly forgettable. I imagine that this film will appeal mostly to the readers of modern fantasy books - those paperbacks that come in 12 part series with dragons on the brightly colored covers. Beyond that niche however, I doubt there's very much cross-over appeal in this story. The truth is that whatever it's target audience, all could be forgiven if it were just a better done film. As it is, it's just a rather marginally entertaining story, without much of anything to say. It's simply a forgettable work.

Standouts: Cute moments and characters like DeNiro's gay pirate.
Blowouts: Some flawed work across the board, including the basic story.

Grade: C+