Earth to Director: Stick with Directing

Rating: 7/10 (12 August 2007)

I had a longer thing here, but ultimately this movie isn't worth that many words. It can be summed up in just a few, actually: Matthew Vaughn, longtime producer, directed the movie "Layer Cake." Nice debut.
For some reason, afterwards, he decided he was a screenwriter too. He isn't.
His screen writing partner is someone with no writing to her credit, and according to the IMDb seems to be little more than a TV personality. Their screenplay is awful, trite, simplistic and condescending, but you can still see the starlight of a brilliant book (which I have not read) shining through.
The actors mostly bring their A-game. Claire Danes is passable, but isn't a star (either within or outside the movie), and has a horrible British accent. Robert Deniro doesn't even attempt an accent, so at least he's playing to his strengths (sort of). Name actors are given very little to do, and no-name actors are given huge parts to play. The results are mixed.
I did enjoy the movie while I was watching it, but afterwards I had time to ask questions. Questions like "why the heck was there only one guard on the wall 24-hours a day? didn't he have back-up?" or, "Why the heck did they cast three younger actresses to play the old witches, and only one (Michelle Pfeiffer) is ever seen as herself? Why not just cast 2 older actresses and save on the wrinkled latex?" It's incredibly sloppy construction, but Vaughn wanted to add to his audition reel, I guess, and hung his fancy suburban home (er, flat) on the blueprints of a Beverly Hills mansion. This is a C-minus movie that should have been an A+.
Just because you can direct a film does not mean you can write a screenplay. See also "Spider-Man 3." In the case of "Stardust," I heard the book was phenomenal, and the Neil Gaiman I've read defies description.
This movie doesn't. It's just pretty okay. See you at the library.