Review: Stardust

But, let's get back to Stardust.

I've been excited to see Stardust since I saw the trailer. I haven't read the book in a long time to the point where I barely remembered it. In fact, I couldn't even begin to discuss the differences between the book and the movie. I was planning on reading it again before I saw the movie but Harry managed to dash all of those hopes. I thought I had a good two-month lead-time to get it done but I had another think coming.

Stardust is the best of everything that '80s fantasy movies were. This film felt so much like Spielberg directing a Terry Gilliam script it was great. This is the kind of movie I want my kids growing up with.

It was simple and it was sweet and it's the kind of movie that you want to watch with a girl. In fact, that was the only thing the film was missing and it was my fault because I didn't bring one with me. It was the perfect date movie. It had plenty of swashbuckling, true-love, fantasy action, bad-ass dudes charging on horses, magic, revenge, etc. In fact, you remember the way Peter Falk described the novel "The Princess Bride" in the film? That's what Stardust is. ("Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles...")

But this makes me think that Stardust might have the same problems finding an audience that Princess Bride did. No one saw that movie in the theatres because it truly had something for everybody and they had no idea how the hell to market it. And I have to say, I've showed people the trailer and the reactions are always mixed. And I've tried to convince them that the film would be good despite their misgivings about the trailer ("It's Neil Gaiman," usually works) but there's still apprehension.

Princess Bride found its audience much later on video and I would hate to see the same fate befall Stardust.

Now, I'm going to bust out a spoiler here, so don't read this if you want to enjoy what's probably the best moment in the movie and worth the price of admission hands down.

DeNiro in drag.

That's right. DeNiro has a dance number in a skirt and then gets discovered and has his ass beat by a Prince.

He's a gruff pirate named Shakespeare, but is actually a gay guy, literally living in the closet for the sake of his reputation.

It's really good stuff. The film has the fairly standard fable/myth/star-wars type formula but it's done right here.

Yes, there's some cheesy moments, but by the end of the film, you're so sucked in that I thought I might explode if it didn't end the way it did. Seriously, if Michelle Pfeifer would have been able to cut out Claire Danes' heart I would have seriously formed a posse to go hunt her down with people from the screening, the whole audience felt that into the film.

There really isn't much left to say about the film that you aren't going to hear from everyone else. The acting was all at the very least capable, the effects were great, the story charming, etc….

But I'm certainly going to drag my kids to see this movie the second I can and not a second too soon, if you ask me.

So, I guess you can't get more positive of a review than that.