The Case for Dusting

With the advent of the school holidays, the kiddie movie season is upon us. And, these days, the epic fantasy movie seems to be a la mode with what the studios expect the kiddies want, and I am not one to dissuade them of this opinion as I love them myself.

Though perhaps "love" is too strong a word to describe my feelings for Stardust, an epic journey through a mystical land in search of treasure and finding true love. I definitely found the first half of the film engrossing, with things moving along nicely, and the fairly predictable plot and fairly predictable characters all being predictable in a good way. For me, the star was Michelle Pfeifer, back with her fantastic bone-structure to chew scenery and steal the show from everyone else as the evil witch, Lamia. Her English accent may have lapsed near the end, and there were some bad "cuts" between her and her sisters, but she still stood out by a country mile.

And then...

Yup, time to gripe. While the leads (the hypnotic Claire Danes and the cutely boyish Charlie Cox) were entertaining, they ran into the towering edifice that is Robert DeNiro. Their encounter with DeNiro's "Captain Whoopsie" was when I suddenly found the film start to falter. Perhaps "flounder" is a better word, as Robert DeNiro himself was great, but his whole character struck a discordant note with the tune of almost everything else in the film up to that point. As mentioned, the characters were fairly predictable and, while well written and played (apart from Ricky Gervais character, but that is another story), all fairly interchangable with characters from other movies. Not the good Captain. His whole character seemed to be from another movie altogether, and so ended up not just as "amusing" but as a joke in itself. And for some reason the stay on his airship lasted days rather than hours, a strange excuse for bonding, several fencing lessons (teaching, in a matter of hours, what years of prior study had not), and the most remarkable haircut I have ever seen in a film.

As I mentioned in the paragraph above, the stop off to visit Ricky Gervais (playing Ricky Gervais, so I really didn't have a laugh) was another low point, but the film recovered to finish well, if predictably. Yes, even the "mistaken message" was well handled, not being completely bungled, but more open to interpretation, so you could see how the message was intended and also how it could be interpreted, which in my opinion was a credit to the writers.

Amusing, sweet (as one person in the cinema cried out as Ian McKellan's "wrap up" speech finished the film), good-looking, well done, with just a few trouble spots along the way. A good start to the kiddie fantasy season really - I am looking forward to more!

Verdict: 7 stars and a smattering of dust out of 10