Movie Review: Stardust

Stardust

rated PG-13 for fantasy violence and risque humor

Filmmaking: 3 out of 4 stars

Moral rating: 3 out of 4 stars

Overall: 3 out of 4 stars

Stardust was one of those films that sort of took you by surprise. The ads have been running for weeks now, and the movie has an all star cast, but for some reason, I forgot about it.

Well, I can officially say that I was quite pleasantly surprised by this fantasy/adventure/comedy movie.

Stardust is basically a huge mish-mash of all fairy tales, along with some Narnia, Middle-earth and Hogwarts thrown in for good measure. Basically think of a live-action version of Shrek.

The story is about a young man named Tristan who leaves his village in England and crosses a magic wall into another world in search of a star that fell out of the sky. His hopes are to retrieve the star, and then take it to the girl he loves back in his village to prove his love. A couple of complications arise from here. First, the star is a literal person, the beautiful Yvaine (played to perfection by Gwyneth Paltrow lookalike Claire Danes); second, an evil witch (Michelle Pfeiffer) is also searching for the star, so that she can cut out her heart and eat it to achieve undying youth and beauty; and third, several princes are also searching for Yvainne, since she wears a necklace that they need in order to take the throne.

From here, the plot goes absolutely crazy, there are spells, fights, pirates, merchants, unicorns, goats and of course, humor.

Morally, the humor is a bit risque at times, regarding bust size, cross dressing, and other adult subjects. One of the most random, yet most off color jokes was in regard to Captain Shakespeare the pirate (Robert De Niro) who in the privacy of his cabin enjoys wearing dresses, painting hearts on his cheeks and dancing the can-can. Yes, I am quite serious. Language was mild, featuring only a couple uses each of d*** and h***. Other offensive content is in regards to some adult themes, as Tristan is the result of a one-time experience between his father and a princess. At other times, things are implied between Tristan and Yvainne.

Overall, Stardust was an excellent film. It was witty, well made, had a great cast (Did I mention Rupert Everett as a self obsessed prince?) and one heck of a soundtrack. The major problem is the amount of grown up humor that the writers felt that they had to put in the movie.

My verdict...if you have seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail....then go see Stardust.