Hey folks, Harry here... The following reviewer is the lovely Andromeda. She's married to Kraken - and allows him his "illicit adventures" with Quint. That said, you've probably seen Andromeda before. She was the blonde that King Kong picked up that screamed so magnificently in Peter Jackson's remake. That said, she had no part in STARDUST, though I'm betting she would've killed 7 or 8 close friends just for the honor. There were 3 moments during the film where she caught my attention during the movie. She was absolutely transported by the film... so much so, that she did something she hasn't done -- she wrote up her feelings on this movie. Here you go...
Hey guys! Here's my review of "Stardust" a.k.a. Afterglow: The Movie.
First of all, you should know that I really loved the book. There are a lot of changes from the book and that normally drives me mad with a lot of movie adaptations. But in this case, the deviations they made from the book made it more interesting, at least cinematically. They kept to the true spirit of the book, which I'm sure was helped by the fact that Neil Gaiman was involved in the process and friends with the director.
I'm going to try to keep this as spoiler light as possible, but no promises. The main premise of the story is about a young man, Tristran (played by Charlie Cox), who in order to win the heart of a girl from his small town of Wall, England goes on a journey to find a star that his beloved saw falling and said that if he could bring back to her by her birthday, she would marry him instead of a local rich boy.
Wall is named for the fact that it is next to a long wall that separates England from the magical realm beyond and it is their job to keep people from going into the magical realm. Tristran's father is the only other person from Wall that ever went to the other side. He went 18 years ago and met a woman, fell in love, and 9 months later, Tristran was left for him at the wall to raise.
What Tristran doesn't know is that in the magical realm (Stormhold), the king just died and as his last act, he threw his kingly pendant into the far reaches of the night and told his only remaining sons that whoever finds it shall be the next king. The pendant knocks a star out of the sky (the one Tristran sees with his fickle young woman) and is also seen by 3 witch sisters.
What we come to find out is that the star takes on human form once on Earth (Claire Danes) and that if one cuts out the heart of a star and eats it, they have eternal life. So we have a race to find the star. Tristran finds her first and the rest of the story is about him trying to get her to Wall without falling into the hands of one of the princes of Stronghold, the witch sisters, or any of the many other people that would kill the Yvaine the Star along the way.
That's as much as I'm going to say about the story line, because you really have to see it to appreciate it.
I'm going to move on to other things - the casting. The casting was truly inspired - young Charlie Cox does a wonderful job of transforming from a simple shop boy into a young man that has embraced his true self and has had his horizons broadened by his adventures.
Yvaine the Star is played by Claire Danes and even though I'm not usually a huge fan of her work, she played Yvaine with such sweetness and simplicity and purity she won the hearts of everyone in the theater.
The princes of Stormhold that had the most focus were played by Jason Flemyng and Mark Strong, although sometimes the ghosts of their other brothers stole the scene.
The witch sister that was chosen to find the star was magnificently played by Michelle Pfeiffer - she looked absolutely gorgeous and was deliciously evil.
The other two sisters played a much larger part than they did in the books and were also delectable in their desire for their sister to succeed - their remorseless butchering of animals to read the entrails for directions was very well done.
We also had some wonderful cameos -
Ricky Gervais (of the BBC's "The Office" and "Extras") made a fun appearance that any fan of his will enjoy thoroughly.
The most notable, however, was the amazing Robert De Niro - he played Capt. Shakespeare and I will not say anything more about him because in my opinion, if you don't want to see the movie for the story, go see it for him. He's hilarious and touching and perfect. This was one of the things in the movie that was quite different from the book and I loved it. The extended character worked beautifully and was one of my favorite parts. His crew was also wonderful, headed up by Dexter Fletcher (who you'll probably not know his name if you're from the States, but will know his face).
As far as the technical aspects - I was blown away by the score, which was done by Ilan Eshkeri and it was also beautifully shot by cinematographer Ben Davis (both had worked with director Matthew Vaughn on Layer Cake). The whole thing was put together beautifully, from costume and makeup to sound design and everything else. I wish I could name every department separately so they'd all get the credit they deserve. A project like this can't be pulled off this smoothly without a lot of hard work from a lot of people. They built a very believable and beautiful world that welcomes you with open arms and you don't want to leave when it's over.
I'd like to address something that was said about the movie, and this will have some MAJOR spoilers, so beware: It was said that Tristran wasn't a very effective hero. This is what I have to say to that - you're missing the point. It wasn't about him becoming a bad-ass. It was about his journey into manhood and discovering what true love is, who he truly is, and having to courage to face the witches in the first place. It was said that all he did was let some animals loose. For one of them, yes, but he had to get there in the first place and he was willing to fight for his love. It may not have been a flashy fight in some places, but it was smart. I mean, really, he's 18 years old and he just learned to use a sword over a course of 2 days (remember, he only had a week until Victoria's birthday). He's going against 3 witches that have been around literally for hundreds of years. What did you expect him to do - charge them with his sword? That's what Septimus did and look where it got him. Speaking of which, one of the things he had to do was fight a zombie swordsman! I think that was pretty heroic. In another part, again, he used his brain instead the hair on his chest and tried to kill one of the witches with bottled lightning. Pretty smart - I would've thought that would work. And yes, in the end it wasn't him that vanquished the last standing sister, but the Star, but that made sense to me because she is unearthly and it would take an unearthly power like that to finish such a powerful force (which, by the way, she wouldn't have been able to do without Tristran's courage).
Okay - I'm done with my rant. GO SEE THIS MOVIE AS SOON AS YOU CAN!!! Harry, thanks for bringing this in for HALF-ASS-ATHON - as soon as I saw it was Matthew Vaughn on the intro video, I got giddy. I've been anxiously awaiting this movie for awhile now and it was worth the wait.
-Mrs. Andromeda Kraken
(don't believe the hype, Perseus lost)
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