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Stardust, a Review

Let me preface this by saying I really (I mean really, really) don’t care for Claire Danes…

With that said, I have to admit that she was fairly enjoyable in Stardust (which the brat and I went to see earlier – yeah for cheap Mondays at the local theater).

Now, it's no secret that I think Neil Gaiman is a veritable God - I've devoured his stuff since I was a geeklet in training, hoarding his "Sandman" comic books from the evilness that is my siblings and their sticky, icky fingers as if it were pure ambrosia. Though my Mum will probably tell you I hoarded all of my books away like that - and cried when I donated a good portion to the bookstore she opened when I was 16.

Despite his God like proportions in the written genre, he's never really translated well to tv/movies... I mean Neverwhere the series from the UK was wonderful but not as wonderful as it could have been.

Now some would say that Stardust just doesn't capture the right essence... and in some cases, that is true. In the very beginning it’s a bit... clunky, but that's to be expected as the beginning sets up the whole wide world that is "Stardust."

Charlie Cox was so adorable - I just wanted to pinch his cheeks, cuddle him close and tell him he would have love - he was Tristan... the Tristan I envisioned when I first read Stardust. Claire Danes, of course, was the falling star he searches for, believing that she's going to be a hunk of rock when he sets out - but that IS the quirkiness of Stormhold. Now as I said above, I don't care of Claire Danes - it's a hold over of my teenage years, yet she played the part beautifully. Together, the two of them played the characters with such a light, carefree hand that you felt they were Tristan and Yvaine.

What is fantastic is how the film touched on so many characters and so many story elements in a wonderful way - it could have gone so wrong. Case in point, Michelle Pfeiffer as Lamia (the evil witch). Okay, so it wasn't a wonderful performance, and her accent was appalling - but it was so fun to watch her act unrelentingly cruel and evil. Or even Robert De Niro's portrayal of Captain Shakespeare - it could have been so god awful, but I thought it was quirky, funny, and utterly adorable.

The subplots were remarkable and didn't suffer at all throughout the movie. The brothers, Dunstan (Nathaniel Parker), Septimus (Mark Strong), Secundus (Rupert Everett), Primus (Jason Flemyng), Tertius (Mark Heap), and Quintus (Adam Buxton) were played beautifully by the actors - and the humor was so slight and so genuine you couldn't help but appreciate how subtlety it was worked in. And the swordfight scene with the "dead" body, has to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

I am so very, very glad we went to see this, and I truly think it lived up to the book.

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