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#586 - Stardust
Matthew Vaughn, 2007
A young man ventures to a magical kingdom in search of a shooting star to prove his love for a beautiful woman, but his quest is complicated by the star taking the form of a living woman and also being sought by evil-doers.
Stardust is something of an oddity in the context of Matthew Vaughn's filmography. Sandwiched between British gangster debut Layer Cake and violent superhero parody Kick-Ass, Vaughn's sophomore feature takes a completely different tack to his other films as it adapts a fairytale novel written by Neil Gaiman. It is built on the fantastic concept of there being an entire realm known as Stormhold that is only accessible through a gap in a stone wall located in a small English village. After a prologue that establishes the origin of its hero (whose father is from the village and whose mother is from Stormhold), it cuts to him as a young man (played by Charlie Cox), a hopeless romantic who is looking to win the affection of a local girl (Sienna Miller). As they witness a shooting star one night, Cox promises to retrieve it for Miller in order to prove his love for her, which means that he must cross the wall into Stormhold. Of course, his seemingly simple quest is complicated by a number of factors. First, there's the fact that in Stormhold the shooting star takes the form of a human woman (Claire Danes), who does not take kindly to Cox's initial plan to use her as a trophy. Second, there's the evil witch (Michelle Pfeiffer) who wants to cut out the star's heart in order to provide her with the magic she needs to remain beautiful and powerful. Third, there's the power struggle that forms in the wake of the king's death as his three remaining sons must try to acquire the star's necklace in order to claim the throne, with one (Mark Strong) willing to go further than the others in order to get it.
There's nothing egregiously wrong with Stardust, but there's not much that can be considered especially great. Gaiman has proven to be a solid writer in the realm of sci-fi and fantasy, but that doesn't fully translate to the story in this film as it crafts a somewhat generic high-fantasy world. At least it is somewhat distinguished by the odd piece of interesting world-building, such as an airship full of sky pirates led by Robert de Niro or the bloodthirsty mechanics of the local regency. The various plot elements are also pretty standard for a film of this nature, especially the romantic ones that are pretty predictable but not enough so to be truly annoying. I do appreciate how the film was willing to set up a number of conflicts, especially by having multiple potential antagonists as both Pfeiffer and Strong stop at nothing in order to track down Danes. The assembly of veteran performers and relative newcomers are generally decent with no real misfires as they all embody a number of familiar fantasy archetypes. Cox and Danes have believable enough chemistry to compensate for the more hackneyed developments of the narrative, while Strong and de Niro do well in supporting roles (especially the latter as a seemingly merciless pirate with some interesting depth of character). The effects work is pretty erratic in terms of quality with plenty of obvious uses of CGI, but it is generally tolerable and occasionally genuinely impressive (as is the case surrounding one character's magic-related death late in the film). Stardust is a tolerable example of high fantasy that has some good moments but lacks just enough cleverness and invention to be a great film; it is also a little too long, predictable, and poorly paced as well. Even so, I'd still rank it alongside Kingsman as one of Vaughn's best films, although considering the company that's not saying much.
Matthew Vaughn, 2007
A young man ventures to a magical kingdom in search of a shooting star to prove his love for a beautiful woman, but his quest is complicated by the star taking the form of a living woman and also being sought by evil-doers.
Stardust is something of an oddity in the context of Matthew Vaughn's filmography. Sandwiched between British gangster debut Layer Cake and violent superhero parody Kick-Ass, Vaughn's sophomore feature takes a completely different tack to his other films as it adapts a fairytale novel written by Neil Gaiman. It is built on the fantastic concept of there being an entire realm known as Stormhold that is only accessible through a gap in a stone wall located in a small English village. After a prologue that establishes the origin of its hero (whose father is from the village and whose mother is from Stormhold), it cuts to him as a young man (played by Charlie Cox), a hopeless romantic who is looking to win the affection of a local girl (Sienna Miller). As they witness a shooting star one night, Cox promises to retrieve it for Miller in order to prove his love for her, which means that he must cross the wall into Stormhold. Of course, his seemingly simple quest is complicated by a number of factors. First, there's the fact that in Stormhold the shooting star takes the form of a human woman (Claire Danes), who does not take kindly to Cox's initial plan to use her as a trophy. Second, there's the evil witch (Michelle Pfeiffer) who wants to cut out the star's heart in order to provide her with the magic she needs to remain beautiful and powerful. Third, there's the power struggle that forms in the wake of the king's death as his three remaining sons must try to acquire the star's necklace in order to claim the throne, with one (Mark Strong) willing to go further than the others in order to get it.
There's nothing egregiously wrong with Stardust, but there's not much that can be considered especially great. Gaiman has proven to be a solid writer in the realm of sci-fi and fantasy, but that doesn't fully translate to the story in this film as it crafts a somewhat generic high-fantasy world. At least it is somewhat distinguished by the odd piece of interesting world-building, such as an airship full of sky pirates led by Robert de Niro or the bloodthirsty mechanics of the local regency. The various plot elements are also pretty standard for a film of this nature, especially the romantic ones that are pretty predictable but not enough so to be truly annoying. I do appreciate how the film was willing to set up a number of conflicts, especially by having multiple potential antagonists as both Pfeiffer and Strong stop at nothing in order to track down Danes. The assembly of veteran performers and relative newcomers are generally decent with no real misfires as they all embody a number of familiar fantasy archetypes. Cox and Danes have believable enough chemistry to compensate for the more hackneyed developments of the narrative, while Strong and de Niro do well in supporting roles (especially the latter as a seemingly merciless pirate with some interesting depth of character). The effects work is pretty erratic in terms of quality with plenty of obvious uses of CGI, but it is generally tolerable and occasionally genuinely impressive (as is the case surrounding one character's magic-related death late in the film). Stardust is a tolerable example of high fantasy that has some good moments but lacks just enough cleverness and invention to be a great film; it is also a little too long, predictable, and poorly paced as well. Even so, I'd still rank it alongside Kingsman as one of Vaughn's best films, although considering the company that's not saying much.