Stardust

“Stardust”

USA. 2007. Directed by Matthew Vaughn. Screenplay by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn. Based on the novel by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess. Starring: Charlie Cox, Claire Danes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro, Sienna Miller, Nathaniel Parker, Kate Magowan, Mark Strong, Jason Flemyng and Peter O’Toole.

Rating: ★★★

It’s been some time since a real fairy tale like The Princess Bride has hit theaters and Stardust is a creatively crazy one. There may be one too many imaginative ideas in this fantasy mix of swashbuckling, evil witches, greedy princes, and, yes, even a cross-dressing pirate but the ambitious concoction is more than refreshing in a summer filled with sequels and retreads. And the central story breathes renewed life into the concept of stargazing.

The film, based on the novel by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess and narrated by the duly recognizable voice of Ian McKellen, introduces Tristan Thorn (Charlie Cox) who lives in England with his father, Dunstan (Nathaniel Parker). He is initially unaware, however, that his mother, Una (Kate Magowan) was actually a slave girl in a fantasy land from beyond called Stormhold.

He is at first smitten with Victoria (Sienna Miller). In order to dissuade her from marrying another man whom he loses to in a pitiful duel, he sets out to retrieve a shooting star that they see falling in Stormhold. With the star will arrive a rare stone whose bearer will determine the next heir to the king (Peter O’Toole).

That star is Yvaine (Claire Danes), a beautiful young woman with long, flowing blonde hair reminiscent of none other than Goldilocks. Tristan finds her after his father tells him about a magic candle that was left behind by his mother and uses it to cross over to Stormhold. He is not the only one who is seeking for her, however, including no less the seven princes greedy for the stone she is wearing and a group of evil witches, Lamie (Michelle Pfeiffer), Empusa (Sarah Alexander) and Mormo (Joanna Scanlan) who want to perform a ritual on her to attain immortal youth.

Amidst this adventure, Tristan will, of course, come to protect Yvaine from the greedy princes and the witches and he will eventually realize that he loves Yvaine and not Victoria. After all, as the old saying goes, how can he resist a shining star that is literally aligned to him? It’s a nice touch that she literally glows even brighter when she feels the emotion of love. It also helps that Cox and Danes have a sweet and natural onscreen chemistry together, even if their fairy tale innocence is marred a bit by the fact that their characters actually fall into bed.

As with most fairy tales, however, the side characters are the scene stealers and the filmmakers went for top-shelf actors to cast these roles. First mention goes to Robert De Niro as that transvestite pirate who trains Tristan in swordplay and Yvaine in waltzing. He scores enormous laughs whether cross-dressing in his closet in the midst of a ship attack or utters the film’s funniest line, “Do you ever try to remove blood stains from silk shirts? Nightmare!” There is also some morbid humor in how the greedy princes turn into lingering ghosts complaining about their fates. Michelle Pfeiffer, meanwhile, gets to play a juicier, meaner and slightly more risqué rendition of the evil Queen from Snow White, much to the chagrin and jealousy of her sisters and our amusement. That leads to a truly loopy fight scene where Cox enters a swashbuckling duel with a dead body controlled by Pfeiffer via a voodoo doll.

The film may not quite achieve the sweep of The Princess Bride with its side plots (De Niro’s character, funny as he is, is really an obvious deus ex machina) but its abundance of rich ideas and laughs is worth cherishing. And Shakespeare the playwright would have been vastly amused by his own Romeo & Juliet and Hamlet influences in the story. His own populating of colorful characters might not have been a perfect fit for a fairy tale but if he had ever penned one, it might have turned out as something like Stardust.