Merrick here...

We've received some wildy positive reactions to early screenings of this film (HERE and HERE, for example) -- but Boozi's take on the film is quite different.

When reading this, it's critical to remember that (as Boozi indicates) STARDUST is not yet finished; many changes may be made to film between now and its late July release date.

Hi Harry

Long time reader... first time contributer.

I just got back from the very first screening of Stardust, which I have been eagerly waiting to watch because its by Matthew Vaughn, who if everyone remembers dropped out on X-Men 3 at the 11th hour! His only other film has been Layer Cake... and fingers crossed Stardust will be his last...

I hardly know where to begin... but I do know that I really would love it, if I could wish upon a star and get back 2 and a half hours of my life.

The audience was made up of critics, members of the cast and crew (who I suppose were also getting a first look at their film) and sitting on the opposite isle to me was the director Vaughn with his ohhh sooo hot wife Claudia Schiffer! This was a screening for market research were the audience had to fill in a questionaire after the film had ended.

The film itself was missing about 50% of the visual effects, and instead they were replaced with pre-vis shots. Also as the film has not been scored yet, the main theme was throughout the film was replaced with the theme from Meet Joe Black (and the only reason I picked up on that, is because I like the MJB theme). This film is terrible, it was way too long, very cliched and very predictable. It was agonising watching it, honest! Vaughn had a chance to work with a very big budget and a stellar cast but still manged to mess it up! He had De Niro, Michelle Pheiiffer, Claire Danes for god sake!

The film treads a very fine line between serious drama/fantasy and light-hearted comedy - and thats typical british comedy! Even the best bit of comedy just managed to get a few chuckles out of the audience and nothing more. The acting by all cast members is very wooden. Amongs the worst culprits is the young Brit lad who plays Tristan, Claire Danes was sooo unbearable! Phieffer should've past. On the upside it was nice to see De Niro to try something new, and it was pleasing to watch his performance. Gosh the film was such a bore, it was almost putting me to sleep! scene after scene just felt like 'been here, done that' to me. The film offers nothing new, and I really feel it will struggle in every department! The Visual Effects that were in the film, completed were 'Meh!' and 'So What!', nothing special and nothing that will wow you. The production values in general were really low.

I really do not know where all the money went! The film is long, boring, mundane, predictable and alltogether poorley put together. I really do not get studios who give directors who apparently have made 'serious' films and know how to deal with 'characters'! Lets face it, Vaughn struggles to jump from small independant brit-flick to hollywood blockbuster wannabe... the blockbusters should be left to the blockbuster directors... Will the studios ever learn?! The general feeling was mutual throughout the members of the audience.

The most diabolicle thing I noticed was a guy that was sitting infront of Vaughn, who after the film ended got up shook Vaughn's hand and said, 'Wow that was amazing' etc etc... which was complete crap... I could just tell he was a star struck 'fan' who noticed the director of the film was sitting behind and must have been crapping his pants at the chance to 'touch' him after the film had ended and say something to him, so it would be a conversation piece in the office at the next day at work. Oh by the way the film although supposedly set in the 1800's is very modern in its language and also in the look (make up) of the characters and costume. Never will you see people living in the 1800's with whiter teeth!

It's so late right now and I have work in the morning... so I think I'll leave it at this for now. Harry all I can say is that this film is really, really bad.... Thank God we got LOTR and Narnia was OK too... but Eragon and Stardust are just ruining the concept of these types of films and its a blatant effort by the studios to cash in on the market, so its inevitable that we have to deal with the nuggets that just wont flush down the toilet!

If you use this call me Boozi