Magnificent!

Rating: 10/10 (26 August 2007)

A feast of fun! I've read the illustrated novel, and while it was one of Gaiman's better excursions into the genre of fantasy, it wasn't as good as this movie adaptation.
I was particularly taken by the acting and characterisation. Lamia in particular was a PROPER fantasy villain, the likes of which hasn't graced our screens for quite some time. Her "counterproductive beauty routine" was hysterically funny, but she was still scary, in fact she got scarier and scarier as the movie progressed.
The ghosts of the Stormhold Clan were hilarious, Robert De Niro delivers a performance that should steal the movie but the rest of the movie's so good it *just* gets away from him, I even ended up liking snooty Victoria and Humphrey! All of the characters were likable, even the nastiest of the witches.
The thing I like best about this movie is the way they handled the magic. There's always a sense that it costs something, that it has rules. And there's magic happening all over the place, but it never really dominates or interferes with the movie, it just spices it up beautifully! A romp! I felt 10 years old again!