Magical and hilarious

Rating: 9/10 (19 August 2015)

This one was quite a pleasant surprise indeed! Having seen the trailer long ago, I went to see this movie with the lowest of expectations. I think that trailer was the one to blame... The flick had nothing to do with it whatsoever. This one has "cult" written all over it, it is destined to become a classic! Judging from its mediocre performance at the box office so far - entirely due to bad marketing - I am afraid it is going to take a while for Stardust to gain the appreciation it deserves, but it will surely be remembered ten years from now.
The movie itself is a rare mixture of fantasy, adventure, romance and comedy. And by rare I mean that the combination actually works and in a very major way! It is hilarious without ending up being childish or silly, majestic without being ridiculous and romantic without being sappy. The way it balances all these elements is an amazing accomplishment by itself. This is probably in large due to the origin of the story itself - Stardust is a novel by Neil Gaiman, renowned for the SandMan graphic novels - which proves that a great story is essential to make a great movie. But the material is also exploited in a very competent way by director Matthew Vaughn (of Layer Cake), with style, a fresh view and without resorting to cliché solutions. This isn't the norm when fantasy novels are turned into feature films, where we have a ton of examples with great stories backfiring due to bad directing. There where shots in the film that literally amazed me with their originality, power and immaculate execution. The whole shooting star sequence made my jaw hit the ground! It has been a long time since I 've seen such a beautifully directed sequence - regardless of genre. The combination of visuals and musical score in this one is just magnificent, perhaps one of the best I can think of. And to think that just moments before I was laughing... This is an example of the elegant way in which comedy is interwoven with awe and magic and despair and emotion in this film. I guess it takes a newcomer's fresh perspective on the subject to infuse a project with some vision and originality - this is Vaughn's second feature film.