A stunning surprise

Rating: 9/10 (3 October 2007)

Stardust - Tristan (Charlie Cox) is a young dreamer in olden days England, obsessed by Victoria (Sienna Millar). They see a shooting star crashing to earth and Victoria promises to marry Tristan if he can bring it to her. He goes to find it and crosses a wall where normality ceases and the land of the surreal and bizarre come to life. He finds the fallen star in the shapely form of Yvaine (Claire Danes) and starts a quest to take her back to Victoria. However a battle is taking place for the kingship of the land, and the princes fighting for it need the ruby around Yvaines neck that the king flung into space and that caused her to crash land. Also hunting her is the evil witch Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer) and her evil sisters who want to cut out her heart and consume it to retain their eternal youth.
It goes full steam ahead from the great opening, right to the best ending for a film I've seen in ages. With a massive A-list ensemble cast and a veritable who's-who of British acting talent almost without exception giving fantastic performances. Pfeiffer in particular brings a depth to Lamia that makes you hate the character and want to see her get her comeuppance. Newcomer Cox seems a bit wooden at first, and up against acting royalty he looks a bit out of his depth, but I soon warmed to him as his character changes through the film and he seems to embrace Tristan's burgeoning confidence.
I admit that I was extremely sceptical of the film when I started watching it, but I was completely won over after the first half hour. Stardust is in the vein of those great epic action fantasy films like Baron Munchaussen and Time Bandits. It shows up Harry Potter for the clunky shallow children's story that it is. The action slightly slows in the middle of the film, and a few small trims could have made this the 10/10 it nearly was - 9/10