Viking Night: Stardust
By Bruce Hall
February 22, 2012
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Anyway, Dunstan enters a new world - called Stormhold - which resembles a typical English village crossed with a Gypsy flea market. While there, Dunstan does what any wholesome English lad would do in his situation. He lays some pipe.
Like I said…he's "roguish".
Dunstan finds a nice young shop girl who pours him a sad story about being the prisoner of an evil witch, and slips him a mysterious trinket in exchange for the sort of kiss you only give to someone if you've never kissed anyone before. So of course, they slip into the traveling wagon and get down to it. Nine months later, Old Wall Man shows up at Dunstan's door with a bouncing bundle of dramatic irony. Yeah, take THAT, you…boy who likes to sneak through forbidden fences in the dark of night chasing falling stars and impregnating Gypsies.
Oh, that's right. Did I mention that Dunstan was chasing a falling star?
Our man is a hopeless romantic who likes to do spontaneously headstrong things like chase falling stars and pick up interdimensional strange. Well, let's see how romantic you feel when you've changed your third diaper of the day before sunrise, kid. But Stardust isn't reality, it's a fairy tale, and so Dunstan dutifully raises the child. But in case you didn't know, every baby that anyone has ever left on any doorstep anywhere has a story behind it. This one does too.
His name is Tristan, and if that makes him sound like a Daddy's Boy, it's because he IS one. Tristan works in Dunstan's general store selling Dristan. No, I'm kidding. But he does lose his job when he wanders off with Victoria, a local lass who happens to be the apple of his eye. And he loses his dignity in a cane-fight (in so far as two men in blazers sparring with sticks can be called a "fight") with Victoria's fiancée - a smug aristocrat named Kal-El Humphrey (Henry Cavill). It looks like he's lost his shot with her, but every bit the bleeding heart his father is, Tristan appeals to her one more time.
He spends his last shilling plying her with a candlelit picnic and tales of adventure in exotic places like London, Paris, and, one of only two other major cities ever mentioned in American movies - San Francisco. Tristan may have a big heart but he sure has no idea how to talk to a shallow rich girl.
While all this is going on, over the Wall in Stormhold, the king is on his death bed, trying to pick one of his sons as successor. They're all literally named after the order in which they were born, and they are all introduced in the necessarily painful sort of exposition that can only occur in a fairy tale. Unable to chose between the squabbling siblings, the King conveniently mentions his missing daughter and produces a magic pendant and flings it into the heavens, producing another falling star. He proclaims, with much pretense, that only someone of "royal blood" (ahem) can retrieve the charm. Whosoever does will rule the kingdom.
Off the brothers go, clearly unaware of what has been implied because none of them have ever seen Return of the Jedi. Back in England, Tristan sees the star and offers to retrieve it for Victoria's hand in marriage. Being the shallow bitch she is, she agrees to switch her engagement from Humprey to Mr. Romance if he can make it happen. Unsure of how to accomplish something so absurd, he approaches his father. As you can guess, they have one of those "this is your destiny" conversations that can only happen in a movie.
And that's where the story really begins, and it's not a bad start. I know it sounds like I'm kind of making fun of all this, but that's only because one of Stardust's few flaws is that it takes itself so damned seriously. It's often compared to The Princess Bride and it's a largely apt comparison, other than the fact that The Princess Bride was mercifully self aware, and accepted itself for what it was. Stardust is a similarly derivative fantasy but rather than embrace it, the film spends a little too much time trying to gloss up a simple bedtime story with slick coat of high concept varnish.
It's not that it ruins the film - far from it. Stardust is enjoyable. It's colorful. It's whimsical. And my God, it's got Peter O'Toole AND Ian McKellen in it! How can you NOT take it seriously? And there's much more to the story than the setup I described, even if it is largely cribbed from every other fairy tale ever written. It's just that this is part of the problem for me. This movie is a surprisingly pleasant pastiche of cliché that tries so hard to create its own legend that it completely overlooks the need for narrative focus and depth. I know, I just used the word "depth" to criticize a fairy tale, but I also mentioned "focus". These are two of the hallmarks of great storytelling.
The Princess Bride is memorable not just because the characters possess more depth than the average fairy tale, but the plot is focused and linear, just the way a bedtime story should be. The more the ear hears the same yarn over and over again the more it begins to crave variety - this is how genre is created and legends are truly born. Stardust does a terrific job of stitching together a lot of genre appropriate ideas, but a simple story is scattered by a lack of balance and the concept is thinned by an overabundance of activity masquerading as originality. The characters go through their required archetypal motions rather than live and breathe the way they should. They are approachable on the surface, but you don't really feel anything for them because they're surrounded by noise and filled with air.
That's not to say they're unlikeable or unmemorable. Oh, no. The feuding Princes are good for a handful of laughs. Michelle Pfeiffer is an icy, scene chewing witch who wants the fallen star for herself (hint: she's evil). Claire Danes is…having trouble with her accent, and the film version leaves the origin of her character a little murky…but I'll give her points for having pluck and sass. And Robert DeNiro appears as a…really, really…um…a pirate. Not that there's anything wrong with it.
Geek Law requires I remind you that this movie is based on a novel written by Geek God Neil Gaiman, and that the book is considerably different in tone. Basic Human Fairness requires I remind you Stardust was directed by, and the screenplay written by Matthew Vaughn, who found time to slip it in between Layer Cake and Kick-Ass. That explains why he found it so hard to tell a simple fairy tale. The film version is sanitized considerably in comparison to what Gaiman wrote, but not enough to avoid a PG-13 rating. The net result is a cute but somewhat empty film that's only suitable for viewing by people who are at the very least ten years too old to find it thematically satisfying.
This is the problem Fox executives THOUGHT they had with The Princess Bride, but that was more a lack of executive vision than anything else. That movie really did fall pretty clearly into a definable mold. You market it the same way you would a live action Disney film, because that's fundamentally much what it was. On the other hand, Stardust is a children's story brought to you by the producer of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels - and it shows. The end product has a contextual edge that seems meant for teens, is inappropriate for younger children and nowhere near intellectually robust enough please adults.
Now, that's what I call a marketing problem. Don't get me wrong, Stardust really is fun to watch. But it's the sort of guilty, superficial thrill you get from running a red light or claiming too many dependents on your W-4. You realize immediately how unfulfilling it was, but it isn't really worth losing sleep over, either. Sadly, these are the kinds of things that separate a merely "adequate" story from a "great" one. Stardust isn't bad, not at all. But it should be better, and it's hard not to think about that while you're watching.
Despite my quibbles I do like this movie, and there's a better than average chance you will too. Maybe you already do. But far better films have managed to successfully bridge the entertainment gap between children and adults. Toy Story, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and some obscure flick about a boy wizard spring immediately to mind. I'm just not sure Stardust is in the same league. But if you think you know someone who would enjoy a film replete with handsome princes chasing falling stars, the heartwarming thrill of True Love, a confusing jumble of bedtime story clichés AND gnarled old crones playing with crocodile guts, then please, by all means share it with them.
But only AFTER they've gotten sick of watching The Princess Bride.