Stardust II

So: yes, we went and saw Stardust on a Saturday matinee (see my previous post on the previews I've seen). Even though the movie had almost no marketing campaign, and, as usual, started out with some abysmally bad movie reviews from critics who would not catch allegory if it smacked them in the face with a rubber chicken, there were people in the theater apart from the four of us, which for a matinee at 1:20 pm on Saturday for a fantasy flick is encouraging to say the least.

Oh it was fun. Most delightfully reminiscent of The Princess Bride--very subtle humor and poking fun of stereotypes. Actors had a ton of fun in it obviously--Michelle Pfeiffer totally enjoyed being a very, very wicked witch indeed, and, well, Robert De Niro showed us what one can do with the evil pirate stereotype given an old airship, some lightning, grubby pirate companions, some purple feathers and Offenbach's music. No, really...
Claire Danes had some really good lines and her range of facial expressions matured greatly from her early works when she was just the pretty blonde who had to look fresh and innocent. Most of the time you believed she was immortal. And Charlie Cox, whom I did not know previously, showed how Tristan Thorn indeed had grown up from a shopboy to a man who once used to work in a shop but ended up as a...well, I won't spoil it for you. Go see it, and don't be surprised if you choke up at some point, or laugh out loud. We all did...
This will be in the permanent DVD collection, and one to show for the kids when time comes.