More than just a fairy tale

Rating: 10/10 (24 November 2010)

A philosopher once asked, "Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?" Pointless, really... "Do the stars gaze back?" Now *that's* a question.
And, so begins the unlikely, and incredibly inventive tale that is Stardust.
Stardust begins with a young man named Dunstan Thorne (palayed by Ben Barnes, one year before his breakout role as Prince Caspian in the second Chornicales of Narnia film) lives in a town in England known as Wall, for the stone wall that has surrounded the town for 150 years. No one knows what lies beyond the wall, because no one has ever gone beyond the confinement. But, Dunstan Thorne breaks that streak, by venturing beyond the wall, and into the magical realm known as Stormhold. While there, he meets a beautiful woman who he has a short, but memorable affair with. He then returns to Wall, but 9 months later, the elderly gate watchman (David Kelly) arrives at Dunstan's home with a baby, which he claims belongs to Dunstan. The young boy is named Tristan (played as an adult by Charlie Cox). Tristan is smitten with the beautiful Victoria (Seienna Miller), who is dating an asshole named Humphrey. One night, Tristan gets his wish of spending more than a few seconds in with his true love.
Meenwhile, the King of Stormhold (Peter O'Toole) lays on his death bed. 3 of his seven sons still remain alive, because the only remaining one is crowned king after their father dies. Two brothers (Rupert Everet and Mark Strong) plot the death of the third brother by pushing home out the castle window. The King tells the two remaining brothers that the first one to retrieve his necklace will be crowned king. He then chucks the necklace into the sky.
The necklace hurtles through space, knocking a star out of the sky. The star crashes to Earth, but not before it's seen by Tristian and Victoria. The two make a bet that if Tristian can go beyond the wall and return the star before Victoria's birthday, in a week, then the two will be married.
Using a strange candle given to him by his mother, called a Babylon Candle, which posses the power to transport a person hundreds of miles in the blink of an eye, Tristain ends up in the middle of a crater, with a strange girl. The girl, named Yvaine (Claire Danes) turns out to the human form of the fallen star. The two set out on the 100 mile journey back to Stormhold.
Along the way, they encounter a cast of quirky character including a witch (played by Michelle Pheifer) who is obsessed with looking young, a band of lightning collecting pirates lead by Captain Shakespeare (Robert De Nero), and a black market trader named Ferdy (Ricky Gervais.)
For those who did not see this film when it opened in theaters back in 2007, simply because it looked like a fairy tale, you missed out on one of the most entertaining films of the decade. Yes, it is a fairy tale, but, overall, it is simply an epic fantasy, albeit an epic fantasy where you know that the two main characters are going to get married in the end, director Mathew Vaughn, who made his directorial debut in 2004 with the mob thriller, Layer Cake, starring Daniel Craig, and most recently directed Kick-Ass with Chloe Moretz and Nick Cage, takes some interesting paths in arriving at that point. It wasn't hard for me to fall in love with this movie, which Vaughn adapted from the Neal Gaiman novel of the same name.