During the summer, box office hit after box office hit emerged out of the movie theaters. We were all graced—or perhaps slightly annoyed—by the umpteenth installations of the Harry Potter, Bourne, and Rush Hour series. Well, Stardust is—refreshingly enough—a little different from your average “Blockbuster” film. In fact, this movie has been around for a few weeks now, but I feel that the movie itself has been unjustifiably downplayed and under-publicized. Considering the number of famous actors in the film and the great story that the movie is derived from, it’s high time Stardust gets the praise it deserves.
Based on the novel by famous British author and graphic novelist Neil Gaiman, Stardust is a fantasy film starring Charlie Cox, Claire Danes, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Robert De Niro. The movie takes place in a world 150 years into England’s past in a town called—wait for it—Wall. In that particularly original-sounding town, a young dreamer with the name of Tristan Thorne (Cox) sees a star fall from the sky. Promising the beautiful Victoria (played by Sienna Miller) that he would retrieve the star to prove his love to her, Thorne embarks on a quest to fetch it. Thinking about the retrieval of the star and his beloved Victoria instead of the trip to his mother’s house, he is warped to the star’s crash site—completely away from his intended destination, Thorne’s adventure begins when he realizes that the star he wants to take back to his girlfriend is, in fact, a woman named Yvaine (Danes). Of course, he isn’t the only one after the fallen star.
Somewhere in another part of the world, three haggard witches also witness the star fall from the sky, and one of the witches, Lamia (Pfeiffer), sets out to devour the star’s heart in hopes of restoring the beauty and power that she and her sisters used to possess. During the arduous task of trying to escape from Lamia, Thorne and Yvaine manage to land on a ship with the infamous pirate (who is really a drag queen) Captain Shakespeare (De Niro)—whose overly flamboyant and non-murderous personality gets the better of everyone. With a number of other colorful characters—which includes the cruel Prince Septimus (Mark Strong), one of the last surviving princes who seeks the star in order to gain a kingdom—after the mysterious Yvaine, Thorne finds no choice but to protect the star, even if it means losing his life.
It becomes apparent that a romance would blossom between Yvaine and Thorne, even with the promise that the retrieval of the star is to win Victoria’s heart. Who does Thorne ultimately end up choosing at the end? Well, you’d have to actually watch the movie to find out. As if that wasn’t complicated enough, Thorne’s mother also reveals a more pressing matter that can even change her son’s status in life.
Though the film doesn’t follow Gaiman’s novel to the tee—the ending itself completely deviated from the book—the movie is definitely an interesting style of storytelling. I have to hand it to some of the actors who actually defined the movie. Pfeiffer and De Niro were completely spectacular and their characters ultimately thrilled the audience. De Niro portrayed Captain Shakespeare so well that I can never see him the same way again (think Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow but even better!).
Danes and Cox also evolved their characters very well. While Danes delivered a passionate and moving performance, Cox gave us a strong leading-man image. To quote a friend of mine who saw the movie as well, Cox went from the “awkward lovestruck teenage boy trying to impress the local beauty Victoria” to a “confident young man assured of his talents.”
Regardless of the genre—so it’s a fantasy film, big deal, it is still on a different level than that of the Harry Potter or the Lord of the Rings series—Stardust is definitely a must-see if you haven’t gone to watch it yet. It’s been in the movie theaters for weeks now, but I strongly recommend that you watch it before it is truly done being screened!
