Stardust

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Science Fiction & Fantasy

Originally posted on Oct 8, '07, at slangards.multiply.com

Stardust is another one of those movies that is destined for my all-time favorites list. I literally couldn't take my eyes off the screen. Like Labyrinth, Sunshine and Before Sunrise, it's one of those movies that had me leaving the theater with a sense of wonder of what MIGHT be out there.

I haven't read Gaiman's graphic novel, but I've been told it reads like an adult fairytale. The movie is much the same. Stardust evokes the same kind of awe and wonder I got as a kid listening to the Brother's Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson, staring intently at my mom as she read, imagining mermaids and fairies and pirates and neer-do-wells and thieves and princes. Heroes with swords and evil witches with magic spells glowing with green malice.

This is the film I was hoping for when I first saw Shymalan's trailer for Lady in the Water. What I wanted from Adamson's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Those films just didn't engage my imagination at all. Lady was so pretentious that it collapsed under it's own weight and Lion's director just didn't have the technical know how to really get that epic feel of adventure that a journey through Narnia should have had.

Stardust comes very close to that other great fantasy adventure, Jackson's Lord of the Rings, though it's tone is very different. It's more like a light-hearted comedy, full of high adventure and whirlwind romance. Pirates, Witches, Princes, and Rouges. When you're there in your seat, you feel like part of the world of Stormhold and you don't want to go back to your dreary life in wall either.

Like Aronofsky's The Fountain, this film really made me want to go out and find the graphic novel. I'm definitely going to watch it again. A lot of people will tell you not to see it because Claire Danes is in it, but you tell 'em to fuck off and see it anyway.