STARDUST
Reviewed by Sam Hatch
Author and graphic novelist (i.e. comic book writer for those of us with glasses and pocket protectors) Neil Gaiman is worshipped as a god amongst a legion of fans who grew up reading the likes of his immensely popular Sandman stories. (Myself? I'd never heard of the guy until now. You believe me, right?) As is the case with many genre pen-pushers, his material has been more of a mixed bag when it comes to the world of cinema.
He was behind the well-received English script translation for the Hayao Miyazaki anime Princess Mononoke, but there hasn't been a slam-dunk filmic iteration of his own work yet. As its title so aptly references, his British miniseries Neverwhere has rarely been seen on these shores. Even his much-anticipated gothic head-trip MirrorMask (directed by frequent artistic collaborator Dave McKean) wasn't quite the tip-top fantasy epic many were hoping for.
Why the grousing and grumbling? Because there are elements of Gaiman's writing that are seldom encountered in the darkened theatre, and I think most of them would play rather well on the silver screen. Thankfully, Stardust is indeed the best interpretation we fans have gotten to date, but there's still a teensy bit of room for improvement.
Stardust's origins were rooted in the comics medium, as the story was serialized with illustrations by Charles Vess before being reimagined as a solo novel later on in its life. It's a fast, fun read that made a great candidate for feature film adaptation. Oddly, Matthew Vaughn (director of the gangster noir Layer Cake, and previously a bit of an understudy for Guy Ritchie) was tapped as director of the film, and co-wrote the script with neon-haired British Telly personality Jane Goldman.
Vaughn makes for an interesting choice as director, but sadly at times he lets the material get away from him. While a portion of the audience may be pining away for a version helmed by someone like cult director Terry Gilliam (who did turn the project down shortly after birthing his own fantasy film The Brothers Grimm), at least it was a ballsy choice to let a relatively untested entity warm the nomenclated folding chair. Amazingly, the heart of the story remained relatively unscathed during the process. Many characters are omitted, new ones are added, and some (namely Robert De Niro's ebullient cross-dressing, sky-sailing pirate Captain Shakespeare) are fleshed out from those that were rather underdeveloped clay in the source material.
The end result has been oft compared to Rob Reiner's legendary The Princess Bride, but I must say that I had many more flashbacks to Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen during the screening. And the film I think it most reminded me of was another Michelle Pfeiffer vehicle - Richard Donner's Ladyhawke (minus the synth-tastic score of course). In any case, these tales are all born from the same seeds, and Gaiman was definitely keen on honoring the spirits of Lord Dunsany and C.S. Lewis with this yarn.
Not only did the film remind me of those abovementioned classic eighties films, the entire feature felt like a product of that decade, regardless of whatever modern filmmaking advances were employed in its creation. For all of the CGI wizardry behind the visuals of De Niro's airbarge vessel sailing across the sky, it didn't particularly look like something that couldn't have been created in the ancient days when ILM ruled the land without even two Intel processors to scratch together.
The score by Ilan Eshkeri is mostly too traditional for my liking, but at least it was often wisely employed as an element of comedy in its timing. Likewise, most of the glowy magickal happenings also break no new ground, so those looking for the It's really there! buzz of the recent Harry Potter films had better check their expectations at the door. Though in a way, this is a considerable strength of the film. It's here to enchant you with its story, not with its technical wizardry.
And (finally getting down to it) said story is a simple tale about a young man (Charlie Cox's Tristan Thorn) growing up in an average English village in the 1800s. Average save for the mysterious wall (which also lends the name of the place - Wall) that divides his town from what looks to be an ordinary field. Knowing that a barren field would surely not require a permanent watchman (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's David Kelly, who gets to belie his elderly appearance with a bit of Kung-Foolery in one scene), the males of the Thorn family are keen on slipping through the crack in the wall for a bit of adventure.
The forbidden side of the wall is not merely a desolate verdant expanse, but another world altogether. It was simply called Faerie in the book, but a section of the realm named Stormhold has been expanded in the script to encompass the entire region. Peter O'Toole makes a delightful appearance as the dying King of Stormhold, who was every bit as murderous as his seven sons (who have all been named numerically, from Primus to Septimus) have proven to be.
The King takes delight when one of the Princes is pushed off the edge of a precipice, and wholeheartedly encourages their sanguine greed. He kickstarts a quest for power by hurling his royal pendant into the night sky, which rudely knocks a twinkling star out of the heavens in the process. The race for the prize is mainly undertaken by Primus (Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrel's Jason Flemyng) and Septimus (Mark Strong, last seen as the mysterious Pinbacker in Sunshine), who employ both runes and ruthlessness to get their way. One of the funniest gimmicks of the film is the running commentary from the glowing specters of all the dead princes, who appear to the audience (and still look as they did at the moment of their deaths, complete with flesh-buried axes and cleavers) but never to any of the still-quickened participants.
Other folk are interested in the fallen body as well, including Michelle Pfeiffer's decrepit witch Lamia, leader of a triumvirate of hags whose waning power is enhanced by the heart of another star they'd slain long ago. Lamia uses the last of the cosmic juju to return her to the form of a sexy cougar (the MILF kind, not the animal though there is plenty of ani-morphic action in the film) and steps out in search of her glittering quarry.
Young Master Thorn is also aching to reach the star, but in his case it's to seal the deal with an unreceptive young village woman named Victoria (Sienna Miller), who is more interested in the 'cool kid' in town Humphrey (Henry Cavill, doing his very best Cary Elwes impersonation). She agrees to marry Tristan if he can retrieve the star from the far reaches of Stronghold, never expecting a lame, awkward shopboy to actually succeed in the task.
In the magical realm on the far side of the wall, a star isn't merely a hunk of rock but a living, breathing woman. And a cantankerous one at that. Claire Danes is truly enchanting as the snippy celestial creature Yvaine, who laments the fact that her leg was injured in the fall. She is immediately annoyed upon introduction to Tristan (rightly so, since he plans to kidnap her and give her to his crush as a birthday present), and does everything she can to escape his presence.
From here it is an enjoyable series of set pieces, as the multiple parties intersect, collide, and narrowly miss one another. There are less fantastic creatures than in the novel, but there is a Unicorn and plenty of human-to-animal (and back) transformation. Mark Williams (mostly recognized as the head of the Weasley household in the Potter films) is simply great as a Billy goat that Lamia morphs into an innkeeper. There's also a fantastic scene where Yvaine professes her love to a person who happens to inhabit the body of an insufferably cute beady-eyed dormouse for the time being. It's one of the best moments of the film.
There are plenty of great actors in the film, and while De Niro and Pfeiffer will no doubt gather most of the accolades, I was most enthralled by Claire Danes' performance. She was absolutely perfect for the character, and it was a delight to see her on screen again (Hell, I even liked Baz Luhrman's Romeo + Juliet). My only complaint is that her character's teeth have been filed down a bit by the script. There's nothing in the film as naughtily giggle-inducing as when the novel's Yvaine precociously drops the f-bomb upon landing on Earth. Also missing were her numerous unkind adjectives for Tristan, and while Danes is still able to portray a woman who constantly ribs the man she also starts to like, it might have been even more fun with a tad more venom.
The big stars (celebrity, not celestial) earn their stripes as well. De Niro takes what could have been a thankless role and really runs to the hills with it. Some may be surprised to find him prancing about (literally!) in a fantasy film, but the guy was in Brazil after all. Pfeiffer is marvelous as a bitchy witch, and I was consistently reminded of how fun she can be in wicked roles such as this and her Catwoman of Batman Returns.
Ricky Gervais appears as the new character Ferdy the Fence, and while he does his usual schtick of playing unfinished sentences for laughs, he and De Niro really click in a marvelous haggling scene. Dexter Fletcher (another Lock, Stock costar) and Rupert Everett also get to partake in the fun. And Ian McKellan sporadically appears vocally as he narrates the film. It's unfortunate that so many of Wall's denizens have been excised by the script, for a long, rambling explanation of their tangled relationships from McKellan (a la the extended opening of The Fellowship of the Ring) would have been a blast.
Some casting I was less in love with. Nothing against Kate Magowan's performance as the slave girl/bird Una, but I think I was routinely picturing Fairuza Balk (mainly her character from The Island of Dr. Moreau) while reading her section of the story. The nature of her slavery was also unwisely changed, since her captivity was hinged upon more interesting riddling circumstances in the novel. In the film, she will be set free once her captor dies. So why not just murder the woman and be done with it?
The script is strangely overlong, for while it omits numerous elements of the story in the name of brevity it stretches others out. It also definitely feels as if the writers are often stalling when it comes to wrapping up the tale of Lamia the witch (though it is nice of the scribes to give her sisters a bit more to do). At times they improve upon the material, such as Captain Shakespeare having much more fun - and capitalizing on the fact that he harvests and sells bottled lightning. And when the film cuts back and forth between the numerous vying parties as they rapidly close in on the town of Wall, it's a moment that showcases how the medium of film is unique in that it can tell multiple stories seemingly at once.
One omission that will surely go down as a sour pill with fans is the squandered opportunity to cast cult songstress Tori Amos as the voice of the helpful red-leaved tree that appeared in the book (and was purposefully fashioned after the ginger-haired pianist she and Gaiman often playfully reference one another in their work). In all, there is an element of Gaiman's distinct wit that is sorely missing from the filmed version of his story.
Not only has Tori's tree been truncated, but other brief yet essential whimsical elements are nowhere to be found. Gaiman's original tale was often touted as a fairy tale for 'adults' but somewhere in the translation the 'adults' were morphed into teens and a considerable amount of the bite was filtered out in the process. A lot of the novel's edgier fodder (such as Victoria lusting after an older shop owner instead of a boy her age, and the ending's wise avoidance of the traditional "Happily Ever After" motif) was dropped in favor of stuff that is far more acceptable on a Hollywood level.
Some of the more complicated examples of the human condition were also streamlined, and relationships in the film are much more simplistic and glorified than the more realistic stories originally penned by Gaiman. Luckily, the core story of two unlikely partners falling in love is more than enough to carry the weight of the film. Tristan's story is a cool spin on high school 'geek to chic' stories, and the target audience should take heart when his father Dunstan spills a Victorian variation on the truth that the jocks of the world often become used car salesmen while the gawky nerds grow up to rule the land.
Perhaps if the film were made in the exact way diehard fans wanted to see it, it would have been doomed to a short life as a cult item for goth kids to worship. Part of its heart has been diluted in the effort to make it something for everyone, but a story this pure and fun is hard to mangle. Vaughn may not have been the perfect man for the job, but he took a chance with something different and delivered a film that should find its fair share of acolytes. And along with other stunners such as Danny Boyle's Sunshine (which shares a certain preoccupation with the spiritual essence of stars), it's always a breath of fresh air to encounter a summer film that isn't a slab of meat ground from the almighty Hollywood sequelizing machine.
I swore I wasn't going to solely compare and contrast between the novel and the film (I'm sure there'll be a special Wikipedia entry for that purpose any minute now), but when push came to shove I suppose I just couldn't resist. But I really did enjoy the movie. As a fantasy film, it's a fun throwback to the genre's eighties heyday, and is thankfully nowhere near as leaden as the recent big screen adaptation of C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. Those expecting an insta-classic replacement for The Princess Bride should take a deep breath, let go and try to enjoy this ride for what it is. The romantic center of the tale is rather infectious, and should prove to lend it a relatively long shelf life. Now gimme a Sandman or Death movie, so us geeks can complain about (and secretly enjoy) that one too!