Movie Mondays: Stardust (2007)

Sometimes you just want a fun movie. There are films out there that deal with some heavy subjects, films that can challenge your world view or make such a profound statement they make you think about the world and your place in them. And you know, there’s nothing wrong with those movies. It’s important for any art form to tackle challenging subject matter, it’s how an art form grows and matures, but sometimes, sometimes you just want to sit back relax and be entertained for an hour and a half.

It's like eating a meal, sometimes you want a delicious full course meal with all the trimmings and other days you just want pizza. Now when I say I like fun movies, I'm not referring to films like Godzilla vs Kong or the Fast and the Furious movies. Those are fun, but they are dumb fun. They're films you can only really enjoy if you shut your brain off, nothing wrong with that I suppose but there are films out there that can still be fun without having to lower one's own cognitive capabilities.

One such example is Stardust. Released in 2007 and based on the 1999 fantasy novel by Neil Gaiman. I haven’t read the novel myself, but I am a fan of some of Gaimans previous works, most notably his work on the Sandman comic book series, which is amazing and you should definitely read it if you get the chance. Stardust was written to be a modern fairy tale. It’s a film with a lot of the same classic fairy tale tropes but with a unique story all its own.

In a way it’s very similar to The Princess Bride only not as over the top and without any of the meta humour. It’s not as good as The Princess Bride, which is hard to match in the first place, but it is a good film in its own right. This was a movie that I wanted to see in cinema’s because it was right up my alley. I'm a huge fan of fairy tales and folklore, and there aren’t that many films based on them anymore, and the ones we do get are not exactly high art, or even middle of the road art.

Sadly, I never got to see it in a cinema, but I did see it later on when I rented it on DVD. Remember renting DVD’s? Man I feel old. I think this was the case for a lot of other people. The film only did ok at the box office, but it’s gained a bit of a cult following over the years. Some people consider it to be a very underrated film and I myself remember liking it when I first saw it. This movie has its fans, but is it worth your time? Let's find out.

Stardust is the story of Tristan Thorne. Tristan is a simple shop boy who lives in the town of Wall, so called because of a wall that runs alongside the town that houses a portal to another world of magic called Stormhold. Tristan is in love with the town beauty Victoria, but she only has eyes for another man named Humphrey. In order to win her heart Tristan decides to get her a fallen star that fell on the other side of the wall.

Unfortunately, the portal is guarded by a surprisingly spry old man so he can’t get to the other side. Luckily, Tristan’s mother, who is a captive princess from Stormhold enslaved to an evil witch, gave him a special candle when she left him with his father that allows him to travel directly to the star. Who, as it turns out, is a woman named Yvaine. Turns out stars in the Stormhold universe are living, conscious beings. Neat!

Yvaine isn’t exactly keen on being given away as a gift, but Tristan says he only wants to show her off to Victoria and then he’ll use the last of his candle to put her back in the sky. Well at least that makes this whole thing a little less awkward. So now Tristan has to, somehow, get this woman to Wall so he can win Victoria’s love.

Along the way they run into a cast of colourful characters: there’s a gay pirate called Captain Shakespeare pretending to be a tough guy, a wicked witch who wants Yvaine’s heart so her and her sisters can be young again, and a prince after Yvaine's necklace so he can become king. Along the way they learn more about each other, Tristan learns to become a man and the gradually fall in love.

I know that last part is a bit of a spoiler, but honestly, I ain’t spoiling much. Like with Cars, this is a very predictable story. You can tell exactly what will happen from the minute it starts. However, this is a movie that knows it’s predictable. As I said, this is a movie heavily inspired by classic fairy tales, but unlike a lot of other modern fairy tales this isn’t a parody or deconstruction. This is a straightforward modern take on it, and it revels in all the clichés and tropes that go along with it.

What I like about Stardust is how it manages to take itself just seriously enough to make us care for the characters and story, but not so seriously that it doesn’t have fun with itself. Like The Princess Bride, this movie is well aware that it is a classic fairy tale and has fun with it. Unlike The Princess Bride though, the movie isn’t as cartoonish and a bit more earnest in its delivery.

That isn’t a jab at The Princess Bride by the way, the more cartoonish approach worked in that movies favour and is one of the reasons it’s the classic that it is. I’m just saying that Stardust is a more honest take on it. Make no mistake, Stardust has its tongue firmly in its cheek. It knows not to take itself too seriously and does make fun of some fairy tale tropes. But it doesn’t do so at the expense of the story.

Take Captain Shakespeare as an example. They could have just made this guy a walking gay joke, and they do use him for comedic effect at times, but they don’t just use him for that. He is a more fleshed out character. He's a man who has to hide what he is because he wants to keep his tough guy façade for the sake of his reputation. He only became a pirate in the first place because it’s the family business and he wanted to make his father happy. He is much more than just a one note gay caricature. He even gets his own little arc of owning up to who he is and learning that his crew accepts him for who he is.

So while the movie does poke fun at itself quite a bit, it doesn’t forget to also tell a good story on top of that. The story is quite charming, as one would expect from a modern fairy tale. It's got sword fights, air ships, witches, unicorns, romance, adventure, all the stuff you know and love from those classic stories. There's a little something for everyone, and it’s not afraid to get creative either. Captain Shakespeare uses his ship to harvest the lightning to sell it off as a power source, that’s a cool idea. There's even a great fight scene near the end that features a corpse being controlled by a voodoo doll.

Stardust does not shy away from the darker side of fairy tales. This is a surprisingly violent film, not in an overly gory way or anything but still more violent than I was expecting it to be. You've got throats being slit, heads being blasted off, people getting impaled, people getting mauled to death, remember when PG films that actually earned their PG rating. It's nice to see a fairy tale movie pay homage to fairy tales surprisingly dark roots and not the overly sanitized Disney styled versions we have today.

That isn’t to say the film is super dark or anything because it really isn’t. It doesn’t try to be a grim dark version of a fairy tale like a lot of modern takes tend to be. It finds a good balance between the lighthearted version of fairy tales and the darker side of them, never leaning to heavily in either direction. Like a lot of the best fairy tales, it knows when to get dark and when to keep things light.

The set design and cinematography are pretty dang good too. It isn’t as grandiose as The Lord of the Rings films but there are some very nice-looking shots here and the CG has aged very well. The make up on Michelle Pfeiffer to make her look like an old hag. She's scary looking in that stuff too, probably would give younger kids nightmares. It’s very fitting for her character I suppose. Enjoy your night terrors kiddies.

As for the story, it’s alright. The idea of a man looking for a shooting star has been done before, but the idea of making the star an actual living being? I admit I haven’t seen that before. It's a wonderfully creative idea and they do a lot with it. Like how she glows whenever she’s happy or how she sleeps during the day, which makes sense because stars only come out at night. That’s something a lot of fairy tales were written for, to explain why things are the way they are. This film has a better understanding of myth than most others, kudos.

At its core though, this is a coming-of-age story. And a coming-of-age story requires a likable and charming main protagonist. And Tristan Thorne, is honestly kind of bland. Which was intentional, he’s meant to be the everyman the audience can relate to, it’s just that he isn’t all that interesting. He is a likable enough protagonist, and he does develop into a confidant hero by the end of the film, so they at least got that part right.

The cast also does a great job and there’s quite a few recognizable names here. Charlie Cox, Claire Danes, Robert De Niro, Mark Strong, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jason Flemyng, Peter O’Toole and even Ian McKellen as the narrator. They all do a great job and have fun with their roles while taking them just seriously enough to make us care for the characters. They aren’t live action cartoon characters like in The Princess Bride, which does make the characters a lot less memorable unfortunately. But it does work for what the film is going for.

The highlights for me are Michelle Pfeiffer as the evil witch because and Robert De Niro as Captain Shakespeare. De Niro is especially great in this, seeing this craggy faced old man go full on camp is hilarious and he’s clearly having fun with it. Michelle Pfeiffer also does a good job as the evil witch, especially given that she has to wear heavy aging makeup a lot of the time. She's at her best when she goes full evil hag, she clearly has fun being evil.

The only performance that wasn’t that good was Ricky Gervais. Not because it was bad mind you, but because it just feels like Ricky Gervais, playing Ricky Gervais. It just doesn’t fit here, and I don’t find him that funny in this. It's a shame too because the film is quite funny with a very dark sense of humour.

One part of the film I like are the six ghost brothers. Remember that evil prince I mentioned earlier, well he had 6 brothers that all tried to kill each other so they would inherit the throne. However, instead of passing on to the afterlife, they’re stuck as ghosts until the next king is decided. And they all have the appearances they had when they died. One of them still has the axe that killed him in his ghost head. I love dark humour like that.

The ghost brothers don’t do much in the movie, but they do add some comedy to the movie with their sardonic commentary. I wish they were in more of the movie because I like what we got with them. That is one problem with Stardust, I wish it did more with some of its ideas.

At one point in the movie, Captain Shakespeare expresses his interest in England. He’s been watching over the wall with his airship and shows the same admiration for England that we would have for Stormhold. That's an interesting concept, the idea that a person from an enchanted world would be as amazed by our mundane world as we would be for theirs. You could make an entire separate story based on that idea. It's a shame the movie never really does anything with it.

There are a few ideas in the movie that it could have expanded upon, but I don’t think it cares. It isn’t trying to be a deep movie with some provocative or insightful commentary. It just wants to be a modern fairy tale and it absolutely succeeds at that.

And when I say modern, I don’t mean it like in the Shrek when the have modern lingo or allusions to current popular trends. Thankfully Stardust doesn’t go down that path. It's as classic a fairy tale in how it feels. And honestly, I find rather refreshing in this day and age. How can something that feels so old also feel fresh? What happened to movies man?

I won’t lie to you and say that Stardust is some kind of underrated masterpiece. It really isn’t quite on that level. It is good at everything it does, the writing, acting, visuals and music are all competently done, it just doesn’t excel in any given area. That's what separates a good film from a great film, something I already went through in last week's review.

But you know what, Stardust may not be a great movie, but it is a very entertaining one. This is what I would call a perfect matinee movie. Something that’s easy to understand, doesn’t raise any complicated questions and will entertain you for 2 hours. A perfectly fun movie for a lazy Saturday afternoon.

Stardust is filled with the classic fairy tale tropes which is I's greatest strength, and its biggest weakness. If you're not a fan of fairy tales, if you find them a little too saccharine and simple for your own personal tastes, this movie is not for you. If you do like those tropes and you want a genuine take on the genre that doesn’t lapse into full on parody or grim dark horror bullshit, then I say check it out.

Stardust is a fun movie and its content being just that. It's a film that knows exactly what it is and goes all the way with what it has. It's unpretentious in that regard and with modern Hollywood being what it is, I admire it for that. It’s definitely worth a watch if you want a fun movie. Recommended to those who are young at heart.