Stardust (2007)
The fairytale that won't behave
This movie came out a while ago, and I remember going “that could be fun.” I then saw it again numerous times over my Netflix sub and went “hey, isn’t that movie that I thought I should check out sometime?” and didn’t watch it. Then, during a casual conversation the other night it comes up again, and at this point I’m like alright universe, we’ll get around to watching it! Get ready for some whimsical fantasy, tonight we trip to fairy tale land and check out just how shining this Stardust is.
So this thing wears it’s intent and delivery on it’s sleeve. Do you want a comedic family romp through a fairy tale story with bright colors, mild threat, kingdoms and fantasy tied together with an adventure and romance? Well, then this will probably be something your fine with watching. A man crosses a wall to a fantasy world hidden from our, gets a princess pregnant, and years later his kid ends up going on an adventure for what else but love? We experience this adventure, as the boy tries to bring back a star to prove his love to someone who could pretty well care less for him. Of course, fantasy twists abound - the star is in fact a person, witches are after the star for youth and immortality, and there’s an entire subplot on princes offing each other so that they can be the one last prince and thereby become King of the kingdom. Through all of this, the main character gets to grow - at least through the parts he interacts with - and we get our classic third act to pitch the question of it true love can win.
In all honesty, the story isn’t really the part that stood out to me, despite it being not that bad. Nah, what stood out the most to me was the whimsy. There is humor and levity in this movie at pretty much all times. Even if it’s a darker thing - such as the princes constantly killing each other on purpose - the moments are filled with these laughable little moments, like tense eye glances all over to see who might be poisoned. Certain characters tend to be more comical than others - the main witch gets to have some jokes here and there, her sisters not so much. Of course, humor is always going to be subjective so ho much you might laugh at a “saggy magic backfire” is going to differ, but the general feel of upbeat happiness through most the movie shouldn’t be lost on most people. Some characters also benefit from actors who are playing a bit out of what you would think they would normally. It’s all pretty fitting of the fairy tale vibe - more upbeat then Grimm stories. You could say it’s less cautionary tale and more hopefully future sort of thing.
The actors themselves do a good job - if not playing a bit of character simplicity at times. Nothing here that I would fault as the actors as much as it being exactly what the production wanted - a bit overblown at times, hardly ever subdued. This feels fitting for me, as if it was a story to tell you children at night the two points would be to entertain and potentially teach them something - both in the hope that it’d tire them out without being a waste of time. Some characters make you not like them - some of which might do a turn-about by the end and become more enjoyable. Some don’t really change much at all - and some don’t change but have two sides as they put on fronts depending on who they are around. The actors do a good job managing this, and it never really feels a character is suddenly a totally different person with goals conflicting what they had five minutes ago. Of course, there’s also plenty of great moments of body language.
Follows is a scene with some great facial expressions.
Audio is done pretty well as far as balance goes. Honestly, audio is pretty good across the board. It’s not floating around with me, but short of going a musical it’s integrated it’s music quite well. There some nice moments were it plays into either the action on display or the emotional backbone the scene is supposed to carry. The line deliveries from the actors really help to play up the characters as well, with such things as the “overly heroic” sounding prince, the cross-dressing lightning pirate, or the at times rather dimwitted main character. There’s even nice little audio jokes, such as a goat that’s been magicked into a human who still only makes goat noises. Sure, a line or two might offend the modern audience (I mean, seriously, compare movie ratings these days to back when - the modern audience can’t handle what they once could), but with a tagline like “won’t behave” it’s rather subdued in offending any sensibilities in my opinion.
The visual effects is all over the place. On the one hand, costumes look great. Set designs look wonderful, complete with over-abundance of props. Scenery is beautiful to look at, outside perhaps a crater - but it’s a crater, it can only look so nice without looking like a crater. Some of the effects don’t quite hold up their end however - such as the tiny elephant in a cage, which looks quite not great. A couple steps away, you have a glow of the star in her human form - sometimes it just looks like it’s a little blur filter around her, other times it’s actually like a decent glow about her as she shines. It works well as far as a visual effect that also plays into scenes and emotions and the like as well, so it’s not just “an explosion for explosions sake” kind of thing. There’s also some magical fire and other things in there - like transformations to and from animals - that look good. As a whole, things skew to the side of enjoyable and well done, so I’m more than happy enough to overlook the few effects that really don’t hold up as well.
When it comes to the moral backbone and the core of it’s story, the movie does have some decent points here and there about being who you are and true love and all of those sorts of things. At the very least, as it stands within fantasy as a genre - you have the romantic lofty goals of the main character, who has to learn over the course of the movie that he’s been operating with a rather narrow and potentially incorrect view of the world about him - but to the audience it speaks of how it can often be easier to see a situation for what it is when you aren’t actually a part of it. You have these princes driven by greed, and that classic fantasy reward for the greedy. You could really probably delve into it and pick out things to make conversation - light or heavy - about if you really want to. For me though, although my usual mood of enjoyment doesn’t call me to do so, I can easily just go about watching the movie and having a good chuckle without getting distracted by the intricacies of the inner working of man and woman and fantasy politics. Instead, it’s just a bunch of goofy numerically named royals offing themselves to try and be next number one, while some special boy from England goes off to procure love from his lady of interest, only to find that he should be aiming for the stars and not someone who could care less.
A pirate dance!
It’s a fine movie. There’s a few jokes that might be a bit inappropriate for some young-types, and there is some fantasy violence in here (a throat cut teaches me that fantasy-land bleeds blue, which in and of itself could be looked at as a clever play on words), so perhaps check it before throwing it on in front of all the kids. In the big picture though, it’s more of a wrist-slap misbehavior then a flat out call the cops.Actors do a good job, as do the various departments of the movie. It comes together as an enjoyable, happy mood sort of movie that feels like it achieved what it probably set out to do - be a fairy tale.