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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Review: Stardust

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#1 of 1 Posted 8/11/07 5:42 PM

From Harveycritic Posts 1637 Last Jan-30
To All [Msg # 22579.1 ]

STARDUST

Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey S. Karten
Paramount Pictures
Grade: B
Directed by:    Matthew Vaughn
Written By: Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman, novel by Neil Gaiman
Cast:   Claire Danes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro, Charlie Cox, Sienna Miller, Ricky Gervais, Jason
Flemyng, Rupert Everett, Peter O'Toole, Mark Strong, Kate Magowan
Screened at: AMC 34th St., NYC, 8/11/07
Opens: August 10, 2007

Every actor wants to be a star, though none would like to a fallen star. In Matthew Vaughn’s “Stardust,” Claire Danes gets to be both. She’s well up there, a superstar, then falls, but it’s only in her falling, not while in the sky, that she finds real love.    “Stardust,” then, is a fairy tale with lots of magic, considerable CGI to convince us in the audience that there is a world of witches, and a terrific team of make-up artists who can do the impossible: to make Michelle Pfeiffer look withered and ugly. The film has its share if violence, as do most fairy tales, and might frighten some parents away from taking their kids, but then both they and their young ones would miss out on some seriously fine visuals and a rousing soundtrack highlighted by Jacques Offenbach’s Can Can theme.   The spectacles include a unicorn that’s friendly to those with goodness in their hearts, but an attacking animal to those who mean harm. A pirate ship features a captain who cross-dresses but is accepted by the macho crew nonetheless. Some of the action featuring bold strokes of bright stars could have come from Danny Boyle’s new movie “Sunshine.” Ultimately, though, the tale is so sprawling, the scenes so lacking in coherence, that “Stardust” comes across as a series of skits: a “Saturday Night Live” show from an enchanted village not unlike the mythical German town of Germelshausen.

Based on Neil Gaiman’s novel, which was illustrated by Charles Vess (available in hard cover for about $26 from Amazon.com), “Stardust introduces separate plots, each centered on someone who needs something to achieve a goal. Much of the action, which is filmed by Ben Davis in Iceland and Scotland, takes place beyond a wall that separates England from the supernatural Stormhold, where a dying king (Peter O’Toole), having killed off four of his seven children, must decide like King Lear who should get the kingdom upon his passing. In a separate tale, Tristan Thorne (Charlie Cox), the spawn of a union between his human father (Ben Barnes) and a woman who lives beyond the wall, tries desperately to win the heart of the pretty Victoria (Sienna Miller), who is engaged to another but who would consider Tristan’s proposal if he can deliver a falling star to her. The job is made easier when the star turns into Yvaine (Claire Danes). Meanwhile the 200-year-old Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer) determines to capture Yvaine and to cut out her heart and eat it to restore her youth and that of her two aged sisters.

The one scene that does not work–an embarrassment at best--but which will be doubtless be considered the scene-stealer by some features Robert De Niro as Capt. Shakespeare, leader of a pirate ship that appears from nowhere and should have nothing to do with the story. Shakespeare is a man who gets caught cross-dressing and bouncing to Offenbach’s Can Can. Other than that the humor is mostly verbal while the computer imagery, and not Claire Danes (who looks less than bewitching throughout), is the star.

Rated PG-13.    125 minutes   © 2007 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online

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Harvey Karten's Reviews

Review: Stardust

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