Fresh breeze in this age of movies.

Rating: 10/10 (29 June 2008)

Because of the little publicity in Germany I got to know about this movie just in April 2008 (unfortunately). So I had to watch the DVD version but none the less I was very enthusiastic about it. I think it is like a fresh breeze in this age of movies because if I were asked for I couldn't name another movie to compare with this one.
First of all I would like to say that I loved this amazing story about a fallen star in the shape of a beautiful woman. I loved Claire Danes in this movie as well as in Romeo & Juliet. She did a great performance and put the finishing touches to "Stardust". But of course I loved the other actors too. Charlie Cox, for me an absolute unknown, did also a great job as "Tristan Thorn". In my opinion he an Claire Danes are perfectly suited to each other.
I was very impressed how they managed to combine action, suspense, romance, humor (a lot of funny irony) and this great story in one movie. So it is really a "whole-familiy-movie" because on the one hand there is this exciting three-piece chase (Tristan-Witches-Princes) after the fallen star and on the other hand a lot of romance between Tristan and Yvaine that developed from funny ironic conversations to very emotional love scenes like in the inn called "to the slaughtered prince".
In addition I loved the great background music (epic as well as romantic) and sound effects they used. It perfectly underlines the current situation in the movie above all in combination with the gorgeous visual and special effects they used (computer animation as well as beautiful "real-life-landscapes").
I also read the book after I had watched the movie and in my opinion the movie is the much better one especially for those who has already watched the movie and loves classic fairy tales with a perfect happy end.
So to cut a more or less long story short I scored the movie in seven weighted categories:
1) [12.5%] action - 8.0/10
2) [12.5%] suspense - 8.5/10
3) [10.0%] music/sound - 10.0/10
4) [10.0%] visual effects - 10.0/10
5) [35.0%] emotion - 10.0/10
6) [05.0%] humor - 9.5/10
7) [15.0%] story - 10.0/10
total: 9.5375 => 10 points
So my personal t.o.p. (= total optimal perfect :-) movie for 2008 is: "Stardust" !!!