Review: Stardust

First, I apologize for the lateness of this post, we've had some technical difficulties that have been killing me. about halfway down the page you'll see where the paragraph breaks stop working. I am sorry if it makes the post hard to read. I'm continuing to try to fix but thought you should have the review in any case. For your reading enjoyment, here it is:

I mentioned this in a previous post a few weeks ago: advertising. Where was the marketing push for this movie? I wrote before seeing Stardust, that this seemed like the perfect movie to get huge momentum out of ComicCon in San Diego. That comic convention (turned Hollywood hot spot) could have held a preview screening, gotten some major press and word of mouth buzz. If they actually did preview it there, then the marketing firm in charge of this movie should be blackballed from the industry. Because I've now seen this movie and let me tell you, this movie is one of the ones that your children would really enjoy.

Here's the quick, dirty, spoiler free plot synopsis on Stardust as provided by IMDB.com: A young man named Tristan (Charlie Cox) tries to win the heart of Victoria (Sienna Miller), the beautiful but cold object of his desire, by going on a quest to retrieve a fallen star.

The potential spoiler if you haven't seen any trailers for this movie is this: the fallen star is, in fact, a person. Played by Claire Danes.

If you loved The Princess Bride, then you will most likely enjoy this movie. It takes you on the same sort of fantasy ride and more than once during the showing I found myself comparing the two. Of course, there was no Andre the Giant for comic relief, but who needs it when you have Robert De Niro pushing his reputation aside to fill a corny, but hilarious role. If the two Ben Stiller comedies were the testing of the water with his toe, then this role was a full cannonball into absurdity. At first I was put off by his character. The first few minutes he's on screen I was confused...why was his acting so horrible? Then I realized...his character is acting! Once you get his character, he becomes one of the highlights of laughs in this film.

This was British actor Charlie Cox's first big Hollywood role and frankly I think he did a fine job. Which is a good thing considering he's in 80% of the scenes shot for the film. His character's growth from a funny, naive and simplistic boy to a confident man happens in an unbelievably short time span, but the flow of the movie distracts from the fact that the entire plot is supposed to fit in a one week time span.

Claire Danes is a take it or leave it actress for me. The people who loved her in her breakout t.v. role in My So Called Life in the mid 1990's continue to follow and love everything she does. I discovered that she really could act in 1996's Romeo and Juliet. Since then she's really turned in scattered performances and a myriad of supporting characters. Just two years ago she was praised in the Steve Martin film Shopgirl. Since then she's acted in three movies, two of which where released this year. Point being, how does this woman pop on and off the radar so quickly and easily? Well, her performance here is solid to my mind. Not fantastic, just solid, I don't find myself wanting for anything, and in fact by the end I found myself sympathetic to her character's emotions. That probably has to do with a certain special effect that is best left for viewers to discover than for me to spoil here.

The other main lead is played by Michelle Pfeiffer, who is coming off of another (debatable) teen targeted movie, Hairspray. Her biggest role before that was in 2001 with I Am Sam, followed by a couple of quiet roles between. She plays the villain here and thankfully her scenes are sprinkled with laughter, because if she played the role straight, it would have fallen flat and pulled the movie straight down with it. The CGI effects on her characters aging were as much a factor as her performance in this roll and she played it well and provided the spur to the plot.

Some of the smaller moments were made better with cameos by some of Britain's comedic actors. Ricky Gervais, of the British version of The Office, has a great 5 minutes on screen. Or David Kelly, who played Grandpa Joe in the recent Willy Wonka redux and lept to America's attention earlier in the hilarious Waking Ned Devine. Sienna Miller's role as Victoria sparks the whole movie, but I really don't have anything to say about her part. Honestly, I haven't seen too much of her stuff previously and I don't know her personality from any interviews or media, but I almost believe that she wasn't acting in this role. I hope that's not true; for her sake.

Overall, this was a perfect summer family flick and I enjoyed the movie. It was light fare and I think that families with kids aged 8-14 will really get their money's worth on a lazy Sunday afternoon. As I stated before, you can draw a lot of comparisons to The Princess Bride, just without all the catchphrases that have been ingrained in your head over the last 20 years. Yes, 20 years.

Watching: The Thomas Crown Affair on my iPhone.

On deck: The September Movie blaaaghs. I do have Buffy season 6 around here somewhere. Still not judging.

Reading: just finished The Book of Fate, still reading His Dark Materials trilogy.